She's Pregnant!
by ChildInMe
Summary: Percy Jackson. Married to Annabeth Chase. Who is, for the second time, pregnant. If only Percy's overprotective in-laws and evil great-grandfather weren't out to make trouble...
1. Chapter 1

**Title: She's Pregnant!**

**Disclaimer: Me no own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.**

**Summary: Percy gets Annabeth pregnant. He has to tell his father, the almighty and powerful Lord Poseidon, ruler of the seas. But what he's thinking is, "Oh shit, my dad's gonna kill me." Rated T for drinking and references to sex.**

Hi. My name's Percy Jackson. And my dad is going to kill me.

Literally.

My dad's usually a cool guy, even though I don't see him that much. He's usually relaxed about me, and let's me do basically whatever I want. We're a lot like each other. Besides the physical resemblance (curlyish black hair, ocean green eyes), we believe in fighting what we believe in and absolute loyalty.

He's also a really powerful guy. He controls the oceans, and has a hand in all liquids. That's a lot of the globe, no?

And now he's going to kill me.

You might think I'm crazy, and maybe I am. Crazy for not using the condoms. You might think I'm raving, and maybe I am. After all, these probably will be my last words.

I got my girlfriend pregnant.

I've known Annabeth Chase for a long, long time. Ever since we were kids, just twelve years old. We've been through a lot together. We've even defeated the evil Kronos guy (worst grandfather in the world) together!

Right now, she's in Harvard, studying. To her, everything is a learning experience. I don't mind as long as I'm not the one who has to do the learning.

But she's really, really smart. You would've thought she was smart enough not to drink so much.

Hell, I knew I shouldn't have drunk so much at that party. It was the annual Olympian winter council, and everyone had a rocking good time. A lot of people got drunk.

Grover got drunk! Well, he does that all the time, but still! And even Thalia got a little woozy from the alcohol, too. Nico, who's only sixteen, got so drunk he almost fell off a balcony, threw a vase at his dad, and had a hell of a hangover when he woke up.

Annabeth and I just snuck into one of the many spare rooms.

We emerged the next morning, embarrassed. Very embarrassed. We avoided eye contact and kept our talking to a minimum. I think that Athena noticed, and that she has her suspicions. I hope that she doesn't send a monster to rip me apart.

I think Nico noticed, too. He's a really sharp kid, even after he has a lot of painkillers in his system. But he left early because Hades got angry once he found out that his son got drunk. ("Underage drinking has cause so many deaths, I know because I'm the king of the Underworld. I'm your father and I command you to leave. Blah blah blah.")

About two months later, Annabeth and I met again. She asked to meet me at that little café we always go to. She sounded vague and worried, so I got in the car and rushed there.

We both enjoyed our strawberry shortcakes. They are quite delightful.

Then Annabeth said, "Percy. I'm pregnant."

I will not lie. I fainted.

When I came around, I was already thinking of my parents. My mom would be angry, no doubt, but understanding enough. By the time Annabeth was three months pregnant, she would already be picking out the baby's clothes.

My dad, though…I imagined a bunch of bloody scenarios that were not pleasant to my mind's eye.

So here I am, outside my father's room. Lord Poseidon's naughty little son, awaiting punishment. Right now, I'm going to write my last will, and then talk to my dad. Ahem. Here goes.

The Last Will and Testament of Perseus Poseidon Jackson.

I, Perseus P. Jackson, being sound of mind

HOLY SHIT! THE DOOR OPENED AND MY DAD'S STARING AT ME! Good bye world, it was nice knowing you.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

He _knew_.

Because he had a videotape of us that night. (Who knew that the Olympians always had all the rooms under surveillance?)

How freaking embarrassing.

He didn't kill me.

Instead, he showed it to my two uncles. Then Zeus showed it to Thalia, and Hades managed to snatch a copy of it for Nico. It went downhill from there.

Everyone knew.

I would kill myself, but then my son or daughter would have no father.

**(Okay, not exactly my style, but I spent a whole fifteen minutes on this!)**

**IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!**

**In celebration of the fourth PJO book (Battle of the Labyrinth, coming out in May), I will be doing a request fic for the lucky fourth person who sends me a PM with the following:**

**Basic plot summary. Must be short enough to fit in. (Example: Percy and Grover must fulfill a prophecy that involves two other mysterious demigods.)(Example 2: Annabeth goes on a quest by herself to save Percy.)**

**Ending. Just write a few sentences. (Example: Percy and Grover find the demigods and fight with the Kronos kids. They later go to Camp Half Blood.) My examples suck.**

**Pairings if any. No homosexuality. (Percabeth, Percianca, Thaluke, etc. Okay, I made up weird abbreviations, but who cares! Moving on.)**

**Number of chapters. (Limit: five)**

**Title (Cuz I'm too lazy to think of one for your summary)**

**Other: Must not be rated 'M' as I see it, only up to three deaths (it would be weird if everyone died), can be a crossover to my other fics**

**ANOTHER IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT**

**For the lucky eleventh person, I will do a oneshot.**


	2. Chapter 2

Min is as fast as a bullet. And almost as deadly for a five year old.

"Daddy!" she screams in joy as she collides with me, knocking the wind out of me. She buries her face in my chest.

"Hey, honey." I said, patting her little dark, curly head.

My wife is much less warmer.

"You're here, Seaweed Brain. Took you long enough. Go wash the dishes." Annabeth says as she flips a page in a magazine. She always makes me do the dishes, even though I hate them. I usually control the water to make it faster, but I always hate it.

"Why don't you do them?" I asked resentfully, keeping my overeager daughter at bay.

"I'm not Poseidon's kid. You are. You do the dishes. Now." Annabeth said in that tone of voice. Whenever she uses That Voice, it means I have to obey, or I'll end up sleeping on the couch for the rest of the week. I don't like that.

"Take care of Min, too." She added. "I have to go and meet Thalia for something."

"Yes ma'am." I mumbled meekly. Then I turned to Min and said, "Go and play with your toys, Minnie."

Min gives me a puppy dog look with big, gray eyes that almost always gets me. "But I wanted to play with you, Daddy."

Her voice is a low whimper, sad and helpless. I fall for it. Almost.

"Sorry, Min. Dishes don't clean themselves."

Min's stormy gray eyes lose that look (thank goodness!) and she pouts. She ran out to play in the yard with her pet hellhound, Scooter.

A word about Scooter. Yes, he is a hellhound. Nico tamed him and gave him to Min for her fourth birthday, despite our protests. A hellhound. Sometimes I feel like strangling the kid for it. Why couldn't have been a dog? Or a hamster?

I sighed and started doing the dishes the same time Annabeth left.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ring! Ring! Ring!

I rinse my soapy hands and answer the phone. This was so…condescending. (Wow, I was sounding more like Annabeth!) I was the only half blood kid of the King of the Seas, and the same person who saved Western Civilization! Here I was, stuck doing simple house chores! It wasn't fair!

"Hello?" I asked in a monotone voice, wondering if it was that lightning rod salesman again. (We didn't need lightning rods. Thalia helped a lot in that area.)

"Hi, Daddy!" a bright, cheerful, and very happy voice chirped.

I nearly dropped the phone.

"Minnie? Aren't you in the yard?" I took a quick glance outside of the window. There was Scooter, napping in the shade. But no Min.

"Where…are you?" I asked in a slightly strained voice.

_Relax, Percy. Deep breath. It's nothing weird. Just relax. Relax._

"We're at a McDonald's!" I heard her sing.

"Who took you there?" I asked sharply.

"I dunno. This nice guy in a big car drove by the yard and asked me to get in. He said he's gonna buy me McDonald's. And I said yes!"

I nearly died right then and there. But a feeling of overwhelming panic seized me and I didn't reply.

"Daddy?" I heard Min ask anxiously.

"Min!" I yelled desperately. I was about to tell her to run away to the nearest police station when she said, "Oh, I gots to go now. Bye, Daddy!"

She hung up.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LOST MY DAUGHTER!" Annabeth screamed in my ear.

I cowered in a corner.

"MY ONLY CHILD! MY LITTLE MINERVA JACKSON! SHE GOT KIDNAPPED? WHY WEREN'T YOU WATCHING HER?"

Needless to say, my wife wasn't taking the news very well.

When she got back home about two or three hours later, she was in a pleasant mood and asked where Min was. When I told her about the phone call and what happened, she slapped me hard and started yelling.

Which brings us back to the present.

"OUR LITTLE DAUGHTER! SOME PERVERT PICKED HER UP, SEAWEED BRAIN! SHE'S BEEN KIDNAPPED! HER ADORABLE LITTLE BODY WILL BE FOUND IN A DITCH SOMEWHERE!"

Suddenly and unexpectedly, Annabeth broke down and started crying. She cried big, baby tears, sobbing and sobbing. This was even worse than the yelling. I would've liked it better if she slapped me a million times.

"Maybe we'll find her." I said hollowly, still in shock.

Annabeth stopped crying enough to say, "We need to find her!"

I was the worst father in the world. I told Annabeth that.

She glared at me, hiccupping slightly. "If you don't help look for her, you'll be an even worse one!"

She had a point there.

Suddenly, a car drove by in front of the house. Annabeth moved closer to the window, her eyes red. I went next to her.

The door opened and a little girl popped out. Min!

Another door opened and someone else went out. Dad?

Minerva held hands with Poseidon and skipped merrily to the house. In her other hand, she was carrying a stuffed dolphin. Poseidon was smiling.

"MINERVA! MY BABY!" Annabeth screeched and rushed out of the house. She grabbed her small daughter and started kissing her head.

I followed her.

Dad looked surprised. "What's wrong?"

"You just took my only child!" I spluttered.

"I just took her to McDonald's, and then to the aquarium." Poseidon replied easily. "I just wanted to spend a little time with my granddaughter."

I looked at Annabeth, who was sobbing in joy now, and a very confused Min.

"I also have some bad news." My father said gravely.


	3. Chapter 3

"Remember the time we named Min?" I asked my wife as I got into gigantic bed. (Which was a wedding present from Poseidon.)

"Mmm." Annabeth replied, eyes closed, leaning on the plushy pillow. She was garbed in those silk pajamas that were a present from Mom last Christmas. No doubt that she was thinking about the same thing I was.

_Flashback_

"_WE ARE NOT NAMING HER ATHENA!" I screamed._

_Meet me, Percy Poseidon Jackson, age twenty-one._

"_YES WE ARE!" Annabeth screamed back._

_Meet my wife, Annabeth Chase Jackson, age twenty-one._

_Both of us were eating ice cream for dinner. Annabeth's fault. She had the weirdest and craziest food cravings and tantrums at the randomest times. I got used to visiting the 24 hour convenience shop to buy whatever she wanted. Soon, I started calling the workers there by their first names, too._

_And this was just four months pregnant. Five more months to go._

_I started ranting again. This time, Annabeth was patiently waiting for me to finish yelling. What a surprise. I think she was just tired from the difficult pregnancy. When I as finally finished, she said, "Then what do we name her?"_

"_His name will be Christopher, named after my grandfather from Mom's side. I was careful to emphasize the _his_ " I told her. "We are having a boy."_

_Annabeth shook her head. "She's a girl. I'm the one carrying her. I can feel it."_

"_Even if she is a girl, we are not naming her Athena." I said calmly. "We are not naming her after my insane mother in law who would gladly murder me. No, skin me alive. Or worse, send me to Harvard."_

_Annabeth threw a spoon at me. "I WANT TO NAME HER! WHAT ARE YOU GONNA NAME YOUR LITTLE GIRL! POSEIDONIA? POISEIDONA?"_

_I dodged the flying spoon and sighed. Annabeth was getting into one of her major tantrums again. I better compromise with her before this turned ugly._

"_What about something else that relates to Athena?" I asked soothingly. Calm down. Calm down. Please do not do anything risky that might hurt the baby._

_Annabeth pouted for a minute, and then nodded reluctantly. She took a big bite out of her chocolate vanilla strawberry pistachio ice cream mix and then said, "Minerva."_

"_MINERVA! NO WAY, WOMAN!" I yelled at her._

"_Yes! I changed my mind. I really, really, really want Minerva now. It's related to Athena! Minerva means Athena in Roman. And one of my sisters is named Minerva. I like it a lot. We can call her Min or Minnie. I'm being generous. I'll let you give her the middle name."_

"_But Minerva is the same thing as Athena!" I spluterred. "How do you think I feel, naming my first kid after my psycho mother in law?"_

_Annabeth glared at me, and reached over to get another spoon. She continued eating her weird ice cream mix and didn't say a word._

"_If we have a daughter, I was planning to name her Pearl!" I whined. Yes, I whined. But my first kid's name was at stake! Pearl was a beautiful name! There were lots of pearls under the ocean, too. It would reflect the heritage of my child._

"_Minerva Pearl Jackson? Sounds pretty plain. Change the middle name."_

"_No way! You picked the first name, I get to pick the middle name."_

"_But she gets your surname!"_

_And that is how Minerva Pearl Jackson got her name._

_End Flashback_

We both chuckled a little. When we had been a newlywed couple, we had argued a lot more. If that was even possible.

"So. How is she?" Annabeth asked, putting aside her thick book on human psychology.

"Um, she was tired. But mostly happy. Dad gave her a new toy, the dolphin. And Scooter's sleeping with her." I replied, thinking about when I tucked her in with that mangy hellhound and adorable stuffed dolphin that Dad had bought her.

"Damn that Nico. Giving my little girl a hellhound." Annabeth mumbled under her breath slightly threateningly, and I made a mental note to warn Nico to stay out of the way.

We were both quiet for a minute, worrying a little on what my dad had said. It had been a little disconcerting (I really was starting to sound like Annabeth) at first, but logically it made sense. I was a son of the Big Three. Annabeth was one of the most powerful daughters of Athena. Any kid of ours would be…kind of strong. And moster would love her. In the food sense.

At first, I hadn't believed it. I guess I went into a bit of shock. I hadn't expected her to encounter the mean, nasty Nemean Lion. I met the Nemean Lion, too. And barely survived. Thank goodness Dad was there.

So Dad had told us that our kid was monster bait. Great. And there was the second part of the news, something much more distressing.

"Daddy? Mommy?" a little voice by the doorway asked before I could think anymore.

Both of us looked at Min. There she was. Small, black haired, gray eyed. Poseidon's hair and Atena's eyes. Who ever thought of that combination? She looked a little scared, and was clutching onto her dolphin. Scooter was faithfully following her.

"Yes, Minnie?" I asked soothingly.

"Had another nightmare." Min mumbled, eyes still bleary from sleep. She stumbled into the room. Scooter barked once and followed her. Min had lots of nightmares, something she probably inherited from me.

"My little Minnie!" Annabeth squealed. She jumped out of bed, thrusting the heavy blanket away. The blanket just happened to hit me in the face. For a wad of cloth, it kind of hurt.

Lucky me, Scooter took an interest in me and jumped into my bed. He started barking like crazy and kicked me in the face. Then he growled menacingly at me. Charming dog, right? I had to strangle Nico the next time he came over for a free dinner.

"My baby girl!" wailed Annabeth, and hugged our daughter tightly. She was like that a lot. Too overprotective. Of course, I wasn't. But then again, Min wasn't old enough to have a boyfriend.

I cracked my knuckles loudly, scaring the "misunderstood" hellhound named Scooter. Any potential boyfriend of Min's would have to beware of the wrath of Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon, hero of the Titan and Olympian war.

Min looked at me and smiled. "Can I, um, stay here? I had a scary dream about a lion."

Figures. Images of the Nemean Lion might still be haunting her brain. I nodded. Min squealed happily and jumped in the bed right next to me.

My little daughter cuddled up beside me and smiled. I smiled back, too. When I was a young teenager, this was not what I imagined, married to Annabeth, father of a cute girl like Min, insurance company worker. But right now, I was happy with my life. (Well, maybe except for the insurance worker part.)

"I want a little sister!" Min told us a few minutes together.

Annabeth, who had been busy braiding Min's hair, suddenly stopped. She was in shock. So was I. That was out of the blue.

"Minnie, why would you want a sister?" I asked after a long silence.

Min shook her black braid loose and then said, "I want one. I want one bad. Everyone is my class had a brother or sister. If I had a little sister, then we could play together, and we can go to the aquarium together, and sneak to the library together, and steal Riptide together, and research stuff together, and go to school together! Please, please, please, please, Daddy? Please, please, please?"

She'd obviously given it a lot of thought. I wonder how long she had been waiting to ask us.

"Min, having a baby is more…complicated than you think." Annabeth muttered to the bouncing little girl. "And having a baby around is a lot of work, too. Your father and I weren't planning to have another darling girl soon."

Min made another one of her pouty faces and immediately replied. "I promise I'll help take care of a baby! I promise I'll help feed her and clean her and teach her algebra! I'll even be happy if it was a boy! But I want a baby sister!"

Teach her algebra? I looked over at Annabeth, who shrugged guiltily. We had a few minor spats about Min's education. In the end, Annabeth always one, but we made a few compromises. Like no teaching Min beyond the fifth grade level.

"We'll think about it." I interrupted her thoughts so that we could stop this conversation.

Min's face lighted up with joy. That kind of face made me happy. But Annabeth and I used birth control. We never really thought about having another child anytime soon.

"Are you going to buy one at Toys 'R Us?" my daughter asked innocently.

I blinked before answering. Twice. "Babies don't come from Toys 'R Us, Minnie."

Annabeth was shifting uncomfortably. This topic of discussion should change anytime now. Anytime. Please. Change. Now.

Screw the owners and contributors of Toys 'R Us. Brainwashing kindergarteners into thinking that everything they could ever want was there. Pure brainwashing. Indoctrination through commercials. (I REALLY had to stop sounding like my wife.) My only child was one of their poor victims!

"So then you and Mommy really make babies together?" Min continued asking in that same innocent little girl voice.

Annabeth and I exchanged glances. What?

"Who told you that Daddy and I make babies?" Annabeth asked in a cool and calm voice as not to freak Min out.

"Uncle Nico and Grover were talking about it." Min chirped happily. (She called Nico "uncle" because he kinda was.) "They were talking about how people make babies. I didn't really understand them, though. Uncle Nico said he screwed his girlfriend. What does that mean? They wouldn't tell me when I asked them."

I clenched my hand into a fist. Nico, eh? Nico and Grover. Were they going to get it for polluting Min's innocent little mind.

Annabeth, on the other hand, was much less subtle than I was. And less patient, too. Some kind of dark aura came over the entire room, and she murmured in a dangerous voice, "Niiiiiiiiiiiicccccooooooooooo. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooovvvvvvvvvvvveeerrrrr."

"Is anything wrong, Mommy?" Min asked in a quiet, shaky little voice. Poor thing was obviously frightened. I drew her closer as if to shield her from my wife's warth.

"Stay here, both of you. I'll be back in about two hours." Annabeth told us briskly with a look in her face that meant "I am going to go and murder a son of Hades and a satyr and there's nothing you can do about." She grabbed some clothes and a thick jacket, left the room, and slammed the door shut.

Another silence.

"Daddy, I'm scared." Min whimpered, and snuggled close to me.

"Mommy'll return soon. She doesn't mean anything bad." I lied quickly. "She just forgot to…get the milk."

Min sniffed and looked at me accusingly. "Daddy, Mommy bought the milk yesterday. I saw her. You're lying."

Both of us heard the car pull out of our driveway and run down the street, probably breaking any and all speed limits. It was worse than I thought. I had to warn Nico and Grover. No wait, I agreed with Annabeth. They deserved what they had coming.

"She's going to beat the crap out of Uncle Nico and Grover." I said truthfully.

Min calmed down as if having your mother beating up your young uncle and friendly satyr was normal. "Oh. Okay. Is it because of the spike?"

"Spike? Minnie, I don't know what you're talking about." I replied, but something in my stomach told me that it was not good.

"The spike in the punch during Christmas. 'Cept I didn't see any spike."

I understood. Nico and Grover had spiked the punch during the Christmas party. They. Spiked. The. Punch. Which Min happened to drink. No wonder she had been acting weird that night.

THEY GOT MY DAUGHTER DRUNK!??!!

"Minnie, stay here for a while. I need to, ah, help Mommy do something. Scooter will protect you, and go over to next door if anything happens." I mumbled through clenched teeth.

I got up and walked out, leaving my confused, bewildered daughter alone.

**Okay, I decided not to make this a oneshot. Or a twoshot. It will have several chapters! All of them will be Percy coping with being a father, husband, and who knows what else? There will be a few more flashbacks about stuff like the wedding or pregnancy, and other characters will make appearances. And another surprise!**


	4. Chapter 4

I am usually not a sadistic person. That is Annabeth, although she would probably deny it. (Min takes after me, in looks and personality, so she was actually nice. Of course, I never told that to Annabeth.) However, I made an exception that night. A very minor one, I think. They had it coming.

(AN: Grover and Nico's torture is better left unsaid. Use you imaginations.)

After both of us were finished, we came back home in our car. During the ride, we swore to each other that this would be kept secret. Nico and Grover were probably too traumatized to even mention this.

When we returned, Min was in her room, sleeping away quietly. Even though she normally was a very light sleeper, she didn't even stir as Annabeth and I creaked the door open and tiptoed in. Maybe she was really tired.

When we first bought the house, we made sure it had three bedrooms. One was our bedroom, another was Min's, and the last one was an extra room, just in case we had guests over or had another kid.

When Min was still a tiny baby, we called it the "nursery." Annabeth had put up pink wallpaper with dancing bunnies imprinted on it. Which wasn't fair because I wanted to paint the room blue. Annabeth then bought all the furniture, which was mostly white, and hung up glow in the dark stars and moons on the ceiling.

Of course, some things had changed since then. The crib was removed, put into the garage, and replaced with a real bed. Toys were scattered on the floor. And after much nagging and begging, Min finally convinced Annabeth to change the wallpaper to white with roses. Which was an improvement, though not a huge one.

Min looked so peaceful that I smiled. People always said that she looked more like me than my wife. But when she was sleeping, she looked a lot like Annabeth.

Annabeth also smiled at the sight of our daughter. She leaned towards me and then said, "Do you think we taught them a lesson?"

I laughed softly, careful not to wake Min up. "Definitely. They won't show their faces around here for a long, long time."

What I meant was that Nico wasn't going to pop up for free meals for about a month, and Grover would stop calling me every time that USC and UCLA faced off and give me a blow by blow description. But the way I said it sounded better.

By the way, Grover liked calling me whenever there was a big game and inviting me to wild parties. He really did that on our wedding night.

_Flashback_

"_Percy…" Annabeth mumbled. "Something's wrong."_

_We were both dazed and disoriented. It was our wedding night, and the shrill phone was ringing like crazy. Who would call at a time like this?_

_We were both alarmed and got up. Nobody would call this late on such an important night unless something major happened. Possibilities flitted through my head. Kronos rose again, or someone had died, or something!_

_Both of us sprinted to the nearest phone. (We had two in our new house.) I got there first because I was faster, obviously because Annabeth was pregnant. With trembling hands, I picked it up and mumbled, "Hello?"_

"_Hey, Percy!" a cheerful voice yelled. In the background, there was the sound of drunken laughter. "Wassup? The Dodgers won again! Hooray! (AN: I'm making Grover a Dodgers fan because I like dodgeball and everyone I know is one! Pretty weird…but it works.) Wanna come over to Nico's place? We're having a party right now, and, and, annnnnddd…"_

_He broke off and I think he vomited. Grover sounded drunk, too, and his speech was slurred. Stupid satyr. So after the wedding party, he had ran off and watched a baseball game that was "super mega ultra important." And then he went over to Nico's house with a bunch of others (I swore I heard Beckendorf in the background) and had gotten drunk. And now he called, waking me up._

"_I hate you." I said and hung up. Annabeth stared at me with question marks in her eyes._

_Awkward silence._

"_Let's go back to sleep." I suggested._

_Annabeth opened her mouth, hesitated, and then asked, "Is it Grover?"_

_I nodded. "It's Grover."_

"_Let's forget this ever happened."_

"_Sure."_

Okay, I was still a little angry. But just a little. That was a long time ago, and I didn't like holding grudges.

"You're thinking about our wedding night. We were supposed to forget that ever happened." Annabeth said calmly, stroking my hair. Stupid mind reader wife.

"Hmmm. You really expect me to forget that?" I pulled away irritably, and she frowned.

"Yeah. Let's go back to bed."

So both of us left Min, something I didn't want to do.

Back in our room, we lay down on the luxurious bed. We were both quiet, but had a lot in our heads. It had been a weird day. First, there was Min's disappearance and the visit from Dad. Then there was Min's innocence slowly being stripped away, and Nico and Grover getting what was due to them.

Sadly, the last part had been extremely satisfying to me.

"Percy?" Annabeth asked softly. "About the…you know…the news."

"Let's not think about it." I said shortly, my voice a little harsher and shakier than usual.

"Tommorow." Annabeth said firmly. "We'll talk about it then."

More silence. My mind buzzed with a million other things, but one stood out. "Hey…Annabeth."

"Yeah?"

"Min said…she wanted a little sister. You remember?"

Annabeth chuckled in her own mean little way. "I remember to clearly. That satyr, influencing my daughter that way! And what about stupid Nico! That little…bastard."

"Technically speaking, Annabeth, both of us are bastards, too. The only person inside this house who isn't one is Min. Unless, of course, you were cheating on me." I grinned back, happy to counteract her.

Annabeth got up and swatted me playfully on the head. "You're smirking aren't you? Don't try to deny it!"

"Never said I wasn't." I really was smirking. "Anyway, back to the original subject."

"What? Psychological torture methods?" Annabeth snorted, remembering something we had discussed in the car on the way to Nico's place. (And then over to Grover's place, too.)

"No! I meant that Min wants to have a little sister."

Annabeth got my hint. Her eyes widened, and she pointed accusingly at me. I kept a straight and innocent face.

"You're a pervert." Annabeth swatted me again, this time on the knee.

"Never said I wasn't."

**Okay, I am ending things right there. Sorry, but that little bit was necessary. I'm working a lot on this fic. I've put Kronos's Diary on the back burner, and Thalia's Summer is coming along slowly. Must finish those two other stories.**


	5. Chapter 5

After I picked up Min from preschool, I gave her a snack. Her favorite, sushi and cinnamon graham crackers, which seemed like a weird combination. And the sushi was expensive, so it was a rare treat. When Annabeth was pregnant with her, she especially craved sushi. Maybe that explained it. (AN: What did you mom crave when she was pregnant with you? When my mom was pregnant with my little sisters, she ate sushi almost everyday.)

While she was eating, I did some awful paperwork. I never realized how bad paperwork was until I got my job. Insurance company worker. Just fine and peachy. Why couldn't I have landed myself with a better job? Boring!

Annabeth also worked. It was hard to imagine her as one of those conservative women in aprons who took care of the home all day. (Although that would've been nice.) No, she wanted to become some kind of scientist. Finally, she had become an architect, although not a very famous one. Still, she was well known around architectural circles, I guess. Weird. And she was also substitute teacher sometimes because she wanted to "help educate the kids of today, and the future of tomorrow."

Anyways, I was slowly finishing some dull paperwork when I heard the phone ring. I hoped that it wasn't Grover and one of his basketball games again. I picked it up.

"Hey, Percy?" a voice asked in nervous tones. The voice was familiar, slightly melodic with an unusual quality. Surprisingly, it didn't have any of the usual seducing intent.

"Yeah?" I asked, recognizing the person instantly.

Silena Beuragard was the gorgeous actress who first played as a character in a Christopher Columbus film. From there on, she quickly gained fame and fortune. What else do you expect from on of Aphrodite's favorite children? She was the mother of a little son who would be about two or three, maybe even four. (There were rumors flying around on who the father was. Nobody still knows for sure.) We sent each other e-mails every now and then, but that was it.

"I need to talk to you." Silena continued in that slightly strained voice which was so unlike the voice she used in movies. (Annabeth and I watched some movies our old childhood friend had been in. Sometimes we laughed, but Annabeth accused me of having a crush on Silena and hit me often. Which was not true.)

"You've been told?"

There was a brief hesitation before she said, "Yes."

"Why are you asking me then? It's not like I can do anything." I stated calmly.

"But you defeated the Titans!" I heard her say. "I've got calls from some of the other demigods, too. We're going to organize and attack."

"Some of the others also contacted me. I'll be ready." I assured her.

"Oh. Wait a minute."

There was a short silence followed by a loud beep.

"How've you been, Percy?"

That was Beckendorf. He had become a decent architect like Annabeth. But his true passion was still blacksmithing. We kept in touch, mostly because he was one of the ones that Grover and Nico would invite to a "mild get together." (CoughwildpartCough)

"Fine. You?"

"Been better, but I'm fine."

Yup, that was old Charlie. Honest but still cheerful and good hearted, despite the little parties.

Another small beep and another familiar voice.

"Sup, guys."

Another beep.

"Sup, guys."

The Stoll brothers, who were almost like twins. Luke's half brothers, too, I noted as I heard them fight.

"Hey, why do you need to be hooked up on the phone, too? You're right next to me!" I heard Connor (or Travis?) accuse.

"Ah well. I'd rather talk like this on my own. Phone hogger." Travis (or was it Connor?) snickered slightly.

"Shower hogger."

"Ugly hogger."

"Sex hogger."

"Why you little…! Are you implying that I…! I really do study with those hot, hot, hot girls! Come here!"

I heard both phones drop and noises in the background that more than implied that the Stolls were strangling each other. It was impossible for these two to be brothers of Luke, evil mastermind.

Another loud beep punctuated by yet another familiar voice.

"Seems like everyone is the same." Clarisse growled. "Stupid. Idiotic. Arrogant."

That sounded like Clarisse. She hadn't changed much, after all. She sent me the occasional e-mail now and then, all of them full of insults. I knew that she worked in an insurance company, too. Well, that's what she said once. On April Fool's Day.

Another. Beep. It was Cecelia Stuart, a Demeter girl. Both of us hadn't been really close, not even back in our teenage years. I remembered her with long blond braids, long legs, wide mouth, and a shy, caring personality. She had a cool shield that Beckendorf had made her one summer and loved plants (of course). Besides, she had been closer to Thalia, but mostly Annabeth.

"Um, Silena told me to link up with everyone. Is everything all right then?" she asked softly.

"Great!" the Stoll twins both crowed. I smirked. Even all those years ago, I had noticed that they both had a soft spot for Cecelia. One summer, they had fought over her.

Another beep. Another demigod.

"Wow. Everyone is here." Cole Nelson said.

Cole was an Apollo kid. Again, he was the one of the many that I never had any contact with since leaving Camp Half Blood. He was blond (duh!), good at archery (again, duh!), bad at poetry (figures!), and loved math (huh?). We didn't really speak much, and he never really stood out.

There was another beep a millisecond after Cole spoke. It was the Dionysus twins.

I laughed. "Great, it's all of us, the Demigod Generals!"

"I always hated that stupid name." Clarisse told me flatly. How nice of her.

Beep. Nico.

"I heard that, Perseus!" Nico yelled. "You forgot about me again! It's not my fault that I didn't have anyone to lead into battle back then! It's not my freakin' fault that Dad swore an oath not to have any more kids!"

Then he broke off, and there was a fearful silence before he whimpered, "You're not going to torture me again, are you?"

"First of all, no. And secondly, I was an only child, too." I said. "No need to get all whiny."

I imagined him pouting before saying briskly, "So everyone is here?"

There was a chorus of "yes"es, one "present!" from Cecelia, and a "of course, idiot" from Clarisse.

"So does anyone have any good ideas to, ah, beat our great-grandfather down to Tarturus?"

Silence.

"Didn't think so." I sighed, and imagined what trouble I would have to go through to beat Uranus.

**Another chapter up! I was forced to make some more OCs because there weren't really any demigod names for all the cabins.**

**The children, more OCs, of the demigods will appear (if they have any.)**

**Now review please!**


	6. Chapter 6

"So we have to meet Beckendorf tomorrow, and then…stop that!" I swatted Min's hand away from my pocket.

Ever since she was two, Riptide had fascinated Minerva. She liked how it always returned to my pocket whenever she took it out. Now it had turned into a bit of a game with her. She would always try to steal my pen…or sword…or pen-sword thing. Although it was annoying, Annabeth was always amused by it.

"Sorry, Grover. It's just Min trying to steal Riptide again. Anyways, we meet up with Beckendorf tomorrow, and tell him our latest strategy. What? No, Annabeth thought up of it. Wait, what about the Yankees? I don't care about that kind of stuff right now! Well, duh. Yeah. Yeah. Bye. See you tomorrow. No, go get your own stuff. Tell Nico. NO! Bye."

Two months had passed since the demigod recruitment started. All of us renewed old contacts and searched for new recruits at Camp Half-Blood. It had taken a while, but we managed to gather up a small army. But we needed more than a small army to beat Uranus. (AN: I know that some people will probably think I spelled "Uranus" wrong. It can be spelled two different ways, Ouranus or Uranus, just like Cronos and Kronos.)

I hung up my cellphone. Min was now playing with her menagerie of stuffed animals. I had recently noticed that over half were sea or lake animals. A seal, the dolphin, two sequin-scaled fish, and so forth. Scooter was also in the room, wreaking havoc on the plushy white sofa. Great. That would be Annabeth's problem.

"Minnie, tell Mommy that I'm going to work." I called out as I put on my overly tight shoes, getting ready to go out.

"Okay." Min said, but didn't even glance at me as she arranged her animals into a circle.

I sighed. She would probably forget. Annabeth had locked herself in the bathroom and wasn't speaking to me this morning. She said that she had to check up on something of utmost importance. Knowing Annabeth, she was probably angry at me because I'd been late for dinner the third time this week. She better not miss meeting Beckendorf tomorrow, no matter how important.

I put my hand on the doorknob and turned just as Annabeth entered the living room.

I turned around and faced her. I smiled. "Hi, honey. I'm going to work now."

Annabeth had a very stricken look on her pale, paper-white face that immediately alarmed me. She looked like she was in shock. And whatever put her in shock must be very…shocking.

"Is something the matter, Annabeth?" I asked.

Annabeth ignored me and sat on the couch. She was there, silent for a full minute, before she said three words that made me faint yet again.

"Percy…I'm…pregnant."

At this point, I fell.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Two hours later.

"Percy, you do realize you're late for work?" Annabeth asked. The color had returned to her face, and the shocked look had already melted away. Instead, she looked excited. So was I, but I was still a little…shocked.

"Duh! But you're pregnant! Again?" I squeaked. (I hated my voice that still got squeaky whenever I got nervous, too.)

After the initial shock, Annabeth revived me by pouring a cup of ice-cold water on my face. Min had been scared and burst out crying. Poor thing. I really had to stop fainting. Who the heck did I inherit that fainting gene from?

Poseidon. It had to be him.

Then after all that, I asked her if she was sure about roughly a billion times, greatly annoying the daughter of Athena. In fact, she showed me the results of the pregnancy test. (Not in front of little Minnie, though.) Then I made some hurried phone calls to work, to Grover, to Thalia, to Nico, and whoever else was on speed dial.

"Oh for goodness sake…YES, I'M PREGNANT! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU, SEAWEED BRAIN!" Annabeth screamed. Were the pregnancy symptoms kicking in already? Oh hell no.

"Well, I guess Min will get the little sister she wanted." I said lightly, trying to calm her down.

She did calm down.

"He is a boy. We will name him Agamemnon." Annabeth stated as though that were already an established fact.

"Ummm…excuse me! Min is a girl. Our new baby will be a girl. We will name her Helen." I spluttered.

"Helen of Troy? Percy, you are much too cliché." Annabeth snorted, and put her hand defensively on her stomach. "Make it more realistic, like Agamemnon."

"Agamemnon? Are you crazy? Do you have any idea how much the kid will be teased in school? And not to mention that you're cliché, too! You're naming him after Agamemnon of Troy!" I pointed out.

She smirked. "Ha! So you did admit it! He is a boy!"

"No! I'm just saying…if he is a boy!"

"We're having a son! We're having a son!" Annabeth shrieked in a sing-song voice. Oh, lordy, the pregnancy symptoms were already starting to kick in. No wonder she had been unusually bad-tempered this past week.

I decided to give up. Have you ever tried to handle your pregnant wife who became extremely violent? I wondered what particular food she would start craving this time.

"Mommy? Daddy?"

Both of us looked around to see Min standing uncertainly at the door. She looked a little frightened, and was clutching to her dolphin, with Scooter at her heels.

"Minnie!" Annabeth screamed in delight. Before I could do anything, she launched herself at our daughter and proceeded in glomping the innocent girl.

"Is something wrong, Mommty?" Min was now visibly alarmed. It was rare for Annabeth to be this excited.

"You'll get a little brother!"

This was the wrong thing to say. Min got a shocked (AN: I used that word too much) look on her face and immediately started bawling.

"I WANTED A LITTLE SISTER!"


	7. Chapter 7

One thing never to do with women (especially a crazy, pregnant woman) was to cancel dates in favor of waiting in line with a certain satyr to buy tickets for a really important baseball game.

I learned the hard way.

During the time Annabeth was pregnant with Min was complete hell for me. Besides the food cravings and bad temper, there was the Other Thing. The Other Thing was visits from _her_. Yes, _her_. My mother-in-law, Athena.

Now, usually the immortals watch from afar. But this was a "Special Circumstance." In the first time ever in history was Athena and Poseidon having the same grandchild. So they often competed with each other, bringing numerous things to the unborn infant. Poseidon got various stuffed sea animals, a few dolls, baby books with cardboard covers, various little toys, most of the elegant white furniture in Min's room, and a few other things. Before she was even born. Athena bought alphabet blocks, Little Einstein videos, coloring books, crayons of every color, books of all kinds, plastic puzzles, Min's bed and sheets and blankets, and the grandfather clock in her room.

Anyway, I dreaded visits from Athena. She would look at me as if I was some interesting bug she would like to squish. She would often subtly hint that I wasn't good enough for Annabeth, and once she bluntly said that my father sucked.

I'm serious. Once, she said, "Your father sucks."

So I was wondering when the first visit would come. To my horror, it came just after two days of Annabeth's announcement.

It was Sunday morning, and a nice, peaceful day. Or at least it should've been a nice and peaceful day. I was eating my breakfast cereal and watching Min at the same time. Min was watching the TV, transfixed, in her teddy bear pajamas, and her hair was let loose of the usual tight ponytail Annabeth tied it into. She was also eating her Cheerios at commercial intervals. Her dolphin, who had been recently named Aquastar, was in her arms. Scooter was next to Min, chewing what I hoped wasn't my shoe.

During a commercial for Froot Loops, the doorbell rang.

"Could you get that for me, Percy?" Annabeth called out. She was in the upstairs bathroom.

"Yeah, sure." I called back to her, and went to the door and unlocked it. I had a feeling of dread, hoping that it wasn't, wishing it wasn't, praying it wasn't…

It was Athena.

"Hold my bag, Perseus." Athena told me briskly, and threw a large, extremely heavy bag that I know she brought on purpose.

Athena, being immortal, hadn't changed at all at all. The part of her special disapproving look reserved for me hadn't changed either. Without fail, she gave it to me as she passed by. It gets really annoying.

When she went to the living room, she made a beeline for Min. That annoyed me even more.

"My little Minerva! How are you today?" Athena asked what could possibly pass as an affectionate voice for certain grumpy goddesses as she gave Minnie a pat on the head.

"I'm okay." Min smiled, but with her mouth full of Cheerios, it sounded more like, "Um hokay."

"Percy, who's that?" I heard Annabeth call down again.

"It's your mom!" I called back. That sounded very much like an insult. Must make a mental note never to say that again.

"MOM? Wait, give me a second." There were a few loud noises and bangs before I heard Annabeth's footsteps come down the stairs.

Min was clinging on to Athena the entire time, saying things like, "Grandma Athena! Did you get anything for me? Why are you here? Grandma Athena! Grandma Athena!"

As I looked at them, it seemed pretty hard to think that Athena was Min's grandmother. Yes, there was the resemblance, mostly the "all-seeing" gray eyes. But Athena looked tight-lipped, intelligent, cold-blooded, and calm. Min was, like most children, playful and smiley, although quite shy around new adults.

"Mother? What are you doing here?" Annabeth asked in amazement when she finally reached the floor.

Athena looked at her daughter and said, "I heard from Zeus who heard from Hephaestus who heard from Beckendorf that you were pregnant. Again."

Was it just me or did that make Athena sound like some sort of gossip?

"But I naturally assume that you were planning on conceiving other offspring, although both of you were too young to really think about it. Nevertheless, Minerva must have reminded you in some way."

Yeah. I think it was just me.

"Oh yes, Minerva. That remind me…I got you a present."

Minnie crowed in joy as Athena handed her a package wrapped in shiny red wrapping paper and a white ribbon. Stupid Athena bribed my lovely daughter with cheap presents every time she visited.

"Thank you! Thank you! It's 'A Tale of Two Cities'! That completes my Charles Dickens collection!" Min squealed and hugged Athena, who looked very satisfied.

"You are most welcome, my little Minerva."

Her Minerva? Since when did little Minnie become hers? And who started giving my innocent little daughter Charles Dicken books? Did they have no idea what the content of those novels were? "A Tale of Two Cites" was about the French Revolution and freaking heads getting chopped off! Min did not need to know that kind of stuff yet!

"Mother…about Uranus…" Annabeth began, but Athena cut her off with a wave of her hand.

"We shall not discuss that right now, Annabeth." Athena bestowed a smile on my wife.

Sure, she smiles at everyone but me. Nice mother-in-law, no? Besides, what had she come to discuss that could be so freaking important?

"Instead, I will make suggestions on how to improve for the coming of the baby."

Complete hell.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"That was complete hell." I said to Annabeth that night.

Annabeth sighed. "Percy, I told you for the millionth time that Mom doesn't like lemonade."

"But she didn't have to dump it on me!"

"You knew she didn't like it!"

"I forgot, okay? I'm just human!"

"Barely human. Now shut up. I'm trying to watch TV."

Annabeth's eyes were glued to the glowing screen, and she was eating her traditional weird ice cream mix. For some reason, she had demanded lobster after Athena left. I had to run to the nearest seafood store, just to find out they had no more lobster, bought crab, run back home, and listen to myself get scolded for no lobster. I hoped that lobster wasn't her pregnancy food. Mucho expensive.

Tomorrow, a bunch of demigods were coming for a baby shower that Silena quickly organized. She had been on speed dial after the whole Uranus-is-coming-to-overthrow-the-Olympians thing. So it was my rotten luck she wanted a baby shower. And it was too soon for one! Annabeth had only announced she was pregnant two days ago!

Something else was bugging me. It wasn't the baby shower or my mother-in-law. Well, it kind of was Athena. She had looked especially troubled whenever she thought that Annabeth and Min weren't looking. But she didn't bother hiding it from me. Athena being troubled meant something was wrong, really wrong. Did Uranus's coming upset her so much? Or was it something else?

"Percy, you're looking too serious." Annabeth sighed. "I hate it when you're too serious."

"Oh. Right." I said, snapping out of my own worries.

Annabeth had finished her ice cream mix, and set the empty bowl on the bedside. She was still watching TV, which was a documentary on turtles. Turtles. How boring.

"Percy, something is bothering you. Don't deny it!" Annabeth snapped as I opened my mouth to protest. "I've known you since we were twelve, and I've been married to you for the past five years. Tell me…what is it?"

I considered telling her about Athena, but decided to tell her half the truth. "Silena's baby shower. Are those even necessary?"

Annabeth snorted and changed the TV channel from Discovery to History. "You know her, Percy. Silena is Silena, and I think it's nice."

"You think so." I murmured resentfully.

"Silena said that she was bringing her son. A nice little playmate for our little Minnie." Annabeth told me.

Silena's son. He entered my thought again, and I found myself curious. I didn't really know about the other demigods' kids, and if they even had any. Silena's son was the only one I knew about. I wondered how he looked like and how he acted like. In Camp Half-Blood, I met only a few quarter-bloods. That was because most quarter-bloods didn't have the same strong monster scent as a half-blood.

Speaking of half-bloods, I wondered when Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades would have more half-blood children. Since the prophecy was fulfilled, and they all already had half-blood kids in the world (Zeus had Thalia, Hades had Nico, Poseidon had me), it wasn't really necessary to hold the oath. In fact, they freed themselves from the oath shortly after the Titan War. Still, they didn't have any half-blood kids that we knew of. Yet.

For the millionth time, I wondered how my life would have been without the stupid oath. Knowing the Big Three, they would have tons of kids. I would have actual half-blood half-sisters and half-brothers. (AN: Okay, that sounded a little weird.) I wouldn't have to worry about the weight of the world on my shoulders. Thalia would be much more relaxed, maybe even happier. Bianca and Nico would've lived in their own timelines, never have faced the nightmare of being locked up in the Lotus Casino for many years, and lived happier lives.

"You're doing it again. You're looking too serious." Annabeth told me. "Percy, I know the whole Uranus thing isn't good news, but lighten up. Live life."

"You're right." I said, and banished all worries from my mind.

After about five minutes, Annabeth turned off the TV. About an hour later, we were both sound asleep.

That night, I had a nightmare. In it, some god was taunting me. I couldn't see his entire face, but I would say he was a young god, because he lacked some of the majesty of the older ones such as the Big Three. He was nobody I recognized, and yet couldn't be a minor god because of all the power oozing out of him. He also seemed familiar, although I couldn't exactly pinpoint what. He was in the shadows and his voice was low, intelligent, cold-blooded, and strong.

"You can not do anything this time. For your time has already passed." He said. "The idiotic Titans are gone. They were weak, incompetent, nothing! But we are powerful and destined to overthrow the Olympians. You should join us, because you and your kind stand no chance against me and Uranus."

Then he stepped out of the shadows, and I saw his face. I recognized a certain feature of his and gasped.

Then I woke up in a cold sweat. I forgot how his entire face looked like, not even the important thing. I couldn't go to sleep for the rest of the night.

**Ooh! Who is this mysterious god? Why is Athena so worried? Unfortunately, you won't find out until much later, but everything ties around very nicely.**

**Quarter-bloods were a bit like an unused idea. Even though ton of people already thought up of that, nobody put them in a fanfic! No, Min is not a quarter-blood. Because two of her grandparents are Olympians.**

**I got so many reviews! Wow! So…REVIEW SOME MORE!**

**Important Note: I need two people to assist me in my new community. PM me if you're interested.**


	8. Chapter 8

"No."

"Pretty please, Percy. With a cherry on top!"

"No, Annnabeth. When I say no, I mean no."

Annabeth and I were facing each other with determined looks on our faces. I was refusing to give in, but Annabeth was equally, if not more, stubborn. She had used nagging, persuasion, a seducing voice, demanding, and currently pleading. Knowing her, we would enter threats soon.

"YOU BETTER AGREE TO THIS!" Annabeth shrieked. Were we entering threats already? Did I mention that when she was pregnant she could magnify her voice twice as loud as her usual yelling?

"Yeah…sure." I mumbled, avoiding eye contact.

I sighed. I had called the insurance company earlier today and faked sickness. I really hated working there. All the paperwork and nasty verbal abuse and poor people who never got their money. Still, a man had to support his family, especially now that we were having a second child.

When Annabeth had found out about this, she had nagged for me to baby-sit the little kids that the other women would bring. Her nagging was like…a persistent mosquito. Incredibly annoying and buzzy at the same time.

Which had eventually lead to this scenario.

"So you will watch over the kids!" Annabeth crowed triumphantly.

"Fine! Fine! I said yes! Jeez!" I half-yelled, partially losing temper myself.

Annabeth puffed herself and opened her mouth to roar at me when the doorbell mercifully rang. Salvation!

"I'll get it!" Min, who was in the living room, called out to us.

There was the sound of the door opening and a soft voice saying, "Thank you very much." It was Cecelia Stuart, Demeter kid. Well, at least she wasn't Silena. In my mind, I sighed in relief.

"Yeah, thanks! Where are your parents?" a louder, more boisterous voice remarked. Now that was Silena. In my mind, I groaned.

"In the next room." Min answered in a surly voice.

Min had been unhappy because of the baby shower. First, Annabeth had dressed her in a frilly pink and white dress that Min said was "too itchy and tight." Secondly, Min realized that the baby would get gifts and she wouldn't. Thirdly, she was expected to be nice to a bunch of strangers. This put quite a damper on her usual mood.

"Stop that, Narcissus Beauragad!" Silena snapped quite suddenly that I jumped.

"But Mom…" a little boy whined.

"I expect you to behave, Nar. Be nice. AND IF YOU DON'T I WILL GROUND YOU UNTIL ETERNITY IS OVER!"

"When will eternity be over?" the boy, who assumed was Narcissus Beauragard, asked in a sincerely curious voice.

"Never." Silena told him briskly. "Come on, Cecelia, let's go."

A few seconds later, they finally entered the room.

There was Cecelia, looking shy and uncomfortable as usual. Clinging on her long green skirt was a small yellow-haired girl who looked a lot like her. Could this be Cecelia's daughter? It seemed a little incredible that she could have a kid, especially one this old. Cecelia wasn't that type of person. But there was the undeniable resemblance that I couldn't help thinking about as the little girl peeked at me, sucking her thumb.

Silena was holding on to the hand of a pouting little boy who looked a lot like her, except for his dark coloring (which I assumed he inherited from his mystery dad). Surprisingly, he was older than I thought, looking about the same age as Min. He was scowling heavily, and looked like he hated being here.

"Percy, Annabeth!" Silena crowed. "Congratulations! Your second baby!"

"Mom, I need to go to the bathroom." Silena's son whined.

"Fine. Let me introduce you first." Silena sighed. She turned to the two of us again and said in a more dramatic voice. "Percy and Annabeth Jackson, this is my only child, my six-year-old son, Narcissus Beauragard! Although we call him Nar. Nar, say hello."

Narcissus Beauragard? That was a weird name, maybe even as bad as Agamemnon Jackson. I didn't dare ask what his middle name was.

"Hello." Nar said in a somewhat respectful voice mixed with a little sarcasm.

This boy was supposed to be the playmate for my daughter? NO! Min only deserved the best, not this show-offy looking boy. She was too young for this kind of stuff!

(AN: MinxNar pairing, people? Isn't Percy a little too paranoid?)

I glared at the back of Nar's head as he headed over to the bathroom. Annabeth noticed, because she pulled me close and whispered in my ear not to lose my temper and be too paranoid and so forth.

"Hi, Percy. Hi, Annabeth." Cecelia smiled as usual, and the little girl tugged on her skirt.

"Oh, and this is Lily. She's my little sister. Say hi, Lily."

"Hi." Lily mumbled in barely audible whisper and stared at us with big eyes, and put her thumb back her mouth. Little sister? Did she mean full sister or half-sister? Lily definitely looked like a daughter of Demeter, and seemed to have a lot of the same traits as Cecelia. (Of course, that could've come from living with her.)

Just then, a girl from the Apollo Cabin that I knew named Darlene Nelson came forward. Darlene was part of the famous "Nelson Trio" back when we were young. She was the youngest and only girl out of the three Apollo siblings. One of her brothers was Cole, the "Demigod General" of the Apollo Cabin during the Titan's War. (Nobody talked about her other brother. It was a bit of a taboo. Once, someone had mentioned him, and Darlene sent that person to the hospital. I should now because the person sent to the hospital was none other than our very own Nico di Angelo.)

Darlene also had a kid with her. Another boy. He was small, and looked about four or three, maybe even two. He had the customary Apollo blond hair, but looked like nothing extraordinary. Still, a father couldn't be too unprepared…

"Hey, everyone." Darlene smiled warmly and turned down to her son. "I brought Paul by the way. Silena said to bring him."

(AN: MinxPaul pairing? Paranoid Percy.)

I turned to Silena and cursed inside my mind. Stupid Aphrodite daughter, inviting all these women with their little kids who might do something to little Minnie. And I had to watch over all of them.

Just peachy.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Including Min, there were ten children to look after, all of them having some sort of Olympian ancestry. Lucky me.

Besides Nar and Paul, there were five other boys. Five! The oldest was a sulky eight-year-old named Ian who was another grandson of Aphrodite. The youngest was the two-year-old brat who was the grandson of Athena, Gabriel. (MinxIan, MinxGabriel…)

The two other girls were Sonia and Lily. Sonia Stoll was the daughter of Minerva, one of Annabeth's half-sisters who had the same name as my daughter. Sonia was a Hermes and Athena mix as the way Min was Poseidon and Athena. (Truthfully, I had never known that Sonia even existed. I was even more surprised with the whole Minerva and Travis thing. They had been officially boyfriend and girlfriend once, but that was many years ago. There had been a nasty breakup, too.)

The girls got along fine. I fenced the boys off to one side of the room, and girls off to another so that they wouldn't…ah…disturb each other.

I watched them with a hawk's eye for the first then minutes. Nothing really happened. All of the boys (except for Ian who said he was "too old to play with little kids") organized a game of tag. Sonia, Lily, and Min were obviously envious and wanted to join in, but I told them in a strict voice that if they crossed over to they boys' side, they would get time-out for the rest of the baby shower.

Because everything was in order, I decided to spy on what the women were doing.

I snuck to the door that was conveniently opened by just a little crack. Small, but still enough to peek through. All of the women were gathered around a table stacked with numerous presents and snacks such as deviled eggs and rolls of ham and beef. The food looked good. Too bad that they probably wouldn't let me have a bite.

"C'mon Annabeth! Open up my present first!" Silena was saying, and gesturing wildly to a gigantic present wrapped in shiny yellow wrapping paper and blue ribbon. It was tall enough that it reached up to my waist.

"Fine, fine." Annabeth, who had been busy eating deviled eggs, grumbled. On a side note, her official new pregnancy food seemed to be eggs of all kind, boiled, fried, scrambled, and whatever else.

Everyone "oohed" and "aaahed" when Annabeth opened up the present, a keeping pen, a prison, some sort of place to dump your toddlers in, whatever. I instantly didn't like it. Did we have that kind of thing when Min was a baby? No.

Locking her in the bathroom for time-out time did not count.

"COOL!" Annabeth yelled, and reached over for the next present, a package wrapped in shiny, swirly green wrapping paper.

"From Cecelia Stuart." Annabeth read the little card thing and shrugged. I noticed Cecelia blush her customary blush.

It turned out to be baby blankets. There were four of them, all looking fuzzy and soft, and in the soft pastel colors of pink, blue, yellow, and purple. They looked rather nice, unlike Silena's prison thing.

"I LOVE IT! THANKS, CECELIA!" Annabeth shrieked again, causing the poor daughter of Demeter to blush even more heavily.

Annabeth then grabbed the closest present. Smaller, plain white wrapping paper with a pure black bow.

"That would be mine." Minerva, her half-sister, said in a pleased voice. Ah. That made it sense. It was simple, elegant, and plain, just what you would expect from a daughter of Athena.

Annabeth tore it open. It was a bunch of Baby Einstein videos.

"Don't worry." Minerva assured my wife. "They're not really Baby Einstein. I made it to actually be educational."

I rolled my eyes and sighed. So Annabeth wasn't the only daughter of Athena to think that Baby was actually poison to one's mind. She had forbidden me to ever even consider buying one. She said that videos like Baby Einstein really did nothing, and was a big plot to get money.

By now, all the women were getting pretty excited. Darlene insisted that Annabeth open her present next "or else" and Cecelia just noticed that they ran out of punch and Annabeth noticed the dwindling amount of eggs and two others were cooing over the blankets.

Did my wife really consider this to be fun?

Just then there was a bang and a loud, piercing scream that seemed to hold for a long time before gradually fading away. Then there was a multitude of screaming voice. I recognized one of them to be Min's.

I was instantly alert. So were all the other women in the next room.

"What's that?" I heard Cecelia gasp before I sprinted away to see what was wrong, followed shortly by everyone else.

Puffing and huffing, I finally reached Min. It seemed like an eternity before I finally managed to assess the situation.

"DADDY! SONIA GOT HURT!" Min wailed.

I looked at Sonia, who was bawling her eyes out. She was on the floor, and her right leg was exposed, showing a big cut that was oozing blood out. Ouch, especially for a little girl like her.

"MOMMY!" Sonia sobbed. "MOMMY! MOMMY!"

"Don't worry, dear. I'm over here." Minerva said, and was cuddling her crying daughter in a millisecond. "Don't cry. What happened?"

"I GOT HURT, TOO!" Min yelled, although she didn't look very damaged or injured.

"MINNIE, YOU GOT HURT?" Annabeth shrieked.

"Annabeth, calm down, calm down." I said. Too much stress during pregnancy was too bad for her.

As if that was their cue, all the other children started babbling and talking about what happened. I quickly pieced together that the girls decided to join the boys for tag. (Going against my rules, too!) The boys decided to let them, except for Nar Beauragard, but he was overruled.

While they were playing tag, Nar took advantage of an opportunity and pushed Sonia Stoll. Unfortunately, he pushed harder than he thought he did because Sonia fell, hitting Min along the way, and knocking over a stand with a vase full of tulips. (It was the same crystal vase that Annabeth's dad, Mr. Chase, got for us a little after our marriage.) The vase shattered, and both girls fell on it. Sonia and Min immediately got cut. Sonia started crying immediately, which had lead to this scenario.

But incredibly, Min doesn't seem hurt at all. No cuts, despite what everyone is saying. Then I see the water from the vase spilled on the carpet and realize what happened. Almost immediately after, Min's cuts came in contact with the water, and it automatically healed her.

That made me feel a little queasy in the stomach. Min, like it or not, was the granddaughter of two major Olympians, one of them being Poseidon. Because she was so young, I never really thought of her having a part in the war with Uranus. She was only five years old. Still, I had been twelve when I got my first quest, and the war with the Titans dragged on for about five years. In another five years, Min would be ten, the same age as Nico was when he first was almost kidnapped by Kronos.

Not good. Not good at all.

While I was thinking about all this, I hadn't noticed Annabeth hovering near me, angry as hell.

"Percy, I thought you were supposed to watch over the kids."

Oops?

"Yet here they are, injured. What were you doing? Were you spying on us? Don't deny it!" Annabeth immediately started drilling me.

Then she seemed to realize that the other women were in the same room.

"Excuse us for a minute." Annabeth smiled politely at the others, grabbed my hand tightly, and dragged me upstairs.

I knew we shouldn't have read about psychological torture, even if it was for Nico and Grover.

**This chapter is now out!**

**Since Blue Trident, the PJO forum, is now down. Uh…join another one! Just google up "percy jackson blue trident" and click on the first thing you see. There, you will find a few lovely links to other forums. Join at least one. Pretty please?**

**So many OCs have come out in this chapter! For some reason, I really like Nar. No, I am not going to be MinxNar! What gives you that idea? They're just little kids! Well, I might make a sequel, but…**

**Oh, and happy 2008!**


	9. Chapter 9

"Do we have to?" I groaned. "My job is bad enough."

Today had been a bad day for me. My boss yelled at me twice today because I "let a bunch of slackers slide" and "didn't uplift our policies." Insurance companies. You gotta hate them. Not only that, I found out that had gotten in trouble…again. So I had to bail him out of jail…again!

"Yes, we do." Annabeth told me sharply. "This is my family we're talking about. And Min's family, too."

I sighed. Athena was bad, but I also had to deal with them. Annabeth's mortal family. The Chases.

Let's see, there's Bobby and Matthew, my brother-in-laws. They're both young teenagers, and think they've done everything. They never forgave me for taking away their beloved older sister, and snub me at every opportunity. They like Min well enough, though. It's my guts they despise.

Mrs. Chase is kind and motherly. Overly so. If anyone, and I mean anyone, interrupts a family meal, she goes psycho. If anything that you did seem to threaten the well being of her family, heaven forbid what she would do to you.

Let's not forget Mr. Chase. He often talks about not just his precious Sopwith Camels or whatever they're called, but also forgets where he put his fork and spoon during dinner. They usually turn out under his plate. How did they get there? I have no clue.

Trust me, in-laws are no fun.

"Just relax, smile, and eat. Nothing bad will happen." Annabeth assured me.

I gripped my hands so tightly on the steering wheel of the car that my knuckled popped out. "Yeah. That's what you said last time."

"Bobby said it was an accident." Annabeth said soothingly.

"Bobby was lying." I mumbled, gritting my teeth. I looked at the mirror to see that Min was fast asleep in her booster seat. How could such a sweet, innocent young things be related to two such devils. Three, if you count Athena.

I closed my eyes and had a flashback.

_Begin Flashback_

"_So, how's your job." Mrs. Chase asked conversationally._

_I poked at my mashed potatoes and said, "Eh."_

_Truth be told, I didn't want to tell the Chases how much I simply hated my job. If I did, Bobby and Matthew would surely jump on that and goad it all over me._

"_Where's Bobby?" I asked, noticing for the first time that the little demon wasn't here._

"_He's in the kitchen, making some more stuff. Isn't he such a dear." Mrs. Chase beamed._

_Ahem! Deluded, much?_

_Just at that moment, Bobby conveniently materialized next to me. He was holding a bowl of mashed potatoes. A big bowl bowl of mashed potatoes…with gravy. A big, HEAVY bowl of mashed potatoes with gravy. A big, heavy bowl of mashed potatoes with LOTS OF gravy. A big, heavy bowl of mashed potatoes with…_

_You get the picture._

_I knew it would happen before it actually happened. The bowl tipped toward my face. It was angled too perfectly to be an accident._

"_Oops." I heard Bobby exclaim. But did I hear just a touch of a giggle?_

_My face was caked in mashed potatoes. Gravy, the cheap kind, was dribbled all over my head and was slowly dripping down to my clothes. Annabeth looked shocked. Min looked surprised. Mr. Chase looked stunned. Bobby had a fake look of concern. Matthew looked like he was about to pee in his pants._

"_Uh…lets' move on to desert, shall we?" Mrs. Chase asked._

_End Flashback_

BAM!

The car alarm started going out of control. The car was partially on the sidewalk and had hit something. What was happening?

It dawned on me. While I was having a flashback, I had absentmindedly driven into a fire hydrant! The top had come off and water was squirting it.

Annabeth's mouth was hanging open. "Oh my. Oh my."

"I can fix that." I said lamely.

"Mommy, Daddy? Wuz goin' on?" Min, who had just awoken, asked. She rubbed her eyes and looked around.

I got out of the car and checked the fire hydrant. Lots of water was squirting out of it. Lots and lots. This stuff was funny in cartoons, but I couldn't help but think that it was a waste of water in real life.

Water…

I closed my eyes and relaxed. I silently willed the water back into the hydrant, and for it to stop flowing out. I hadn't done something like this in a long time. Years. In fact, the last time I ever did was when I was sixteen.

Luckily, my skill hadn't faded. The water drifted back in, and stayed still. I sighed in relief. It actually felt kind of good, doing this again. I hadn't felt this peaceful in a long time.

"SEAWEED BRAIN! YOU WRECKED THE CAR!"

Okay, maybe not.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"Sorry we were late. We had a few…delays." Annabeth smiled.

Bobby and Matthew kept on eating, oblivious to anything else except their mother's good cooking. Mr. Chase was busy fiddling with some sort of model of an old-fashioned airplane under the table. Mrs. Chase, on the other hand, raised her right eyebrow slightly and looked straight at me.

"Uncle Matt! You'll never guess what happened!" Min was saying to Matthew.

"What?" Matthew smiled at his cuddly niece.

"I GOT A NEW DOLPHIN! NAMED AQUASTAR!" Min bellowed, and launched into the story of how she got it.

Matthew listened intently, especially when Poseidon was mentioned. Bobby and Matthew were a little touchy about the whole Olympian thing. They knew that they were "regular mortals." (In my opinion, they were too evil to be regular mortals.) They knew all about the monsters that plagued young demigods.

"FREDERICK!" Mrs. Chase screamed suddenly. Everyone jumped. A dark aura descended upon the room. "NO INTERRUPTING DINNER! GET RID OF THAT!"

"Yes, dear." Mr. Chase mumbled resentfully and fearfully at the same time. He tossed his little model thing away. It seemed to hit a vase and break it.

Nobody dare moved from their seats.

"So…Min. How's school?" Mrs. Chase turned to my daughter.

Min started telling Mrs. Chase about how her friend, Lily Greene (Cecelia's little sis), became the new kid in school and how they played. Her childish obliviousness shielded her from the wrath of the Chases.

I continued eating the macaroni in some sort of white sauce. It was pretty good. Mrs. Chase was an excellent cook, something that I wished Annabeth was. She burned food. She set a napkin on fire! What kind of a person accidentally sets napkins on fires? (AN: I swear, it was an accident! I just spilled some eggs on the grill and was trying to wipe them up when the napkin just kinda…went on fire. But I quickly dunked it in the sink, so no worries!)

_Enjoy the homemade food while you can._ I thought. _Because after this, it's back to Chinese takeout. Again._

I already found myself longing for Mrs. Chase's delicious leek and pepper soup. I know, it sounds weird. Leek and pepper soup. But it's the best soup I ever tasted in my entire life. Even better than Mom's. (May she never hear me say that.)

There was silence again when Min was finished babbling about Lily.

Mr. Chase was playing with something again! It looked exactly like the model airplane he was toying around with. He probably had backups everywhere, knowing that his wife would hunt them down during dinner.

I was halfway done with my food when the smell of smoke reached us. Could this day get any worse?

"My apple pie!" Mrs. Chase gasped, and sprinted into the kitchen.

When she left, everyone visibly relaxed. Mr. Chase got out his figurine in full view and started tinkering with it, obviously fascinated. He mumbled something about melting some metal down and crafting something. Bobby quickly slid his spinach on to his dad's plate. Matthew just scoffed and stole some macaroni from his dad's plate. Annabeth smiled and leaned back. Min just kept eating with full gusto.

Annabeth's cellphone rang. Panicking, she quickly opened it and started talking at rapid speed, "I-don't-care-what-it-is-Nico-my-insane-mother-law-is-going-to-kill-me-if-she-knows-about-this-so…WHAT? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?"

I stared at her. So did the Chase brothers and Mr. Chase. It wasn't like Annabeth to loose her cool.

"NICO DI ANGELO! IF YOU ARE LYING TO ME, YOU ARE SO DEAD! WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?"

I could vaguely make out Nico's voice protesting. It was one of those few times that Nico had the same deadly serious tone as his dad's. That only caused me more alarm.

"Daddy? Mommy?" Min asked, obviously confused.

"HOW COULD SHE GET KIDNAPPED! SHE'S A GODDESS!" Annabeth continued to rage at Nico, but I sensed something else. Fear?

And what goddess got kidnapped? Was it Artemis again?

It was a really inconvenient time for Mrs. Chase to screech from the kitchen, "WHO'S RUINING MY DINNER?"

**All right! It's "Dinner with the Chases!" I actually had something entirely different planned out, but didn't like it. So I deleted the chapter and started all over.**

Which goddess got kidnapped? Why is Annabeth in such a panic? Luckily, those two answers will be revealed in the next chapter.

**Oh, and thanks to xxxThisIsMexxx for becoming one of my community's staff members! (Applause.) There's still one more spot open. You want to join. I know you do. Just send me a PM.**

**Google up "percy jackson olympian hearth" and you shall find a forum. Join Olympian Hearth now!!!!!!!!!!!!**


	10. Chapter 10

**If you're wondering what took me so long to update, read my profile page. Man, I need to get a better computer. And the kidnapped goddess was predictable, since some of you guys guessed it. But whatever. The next chapter is now out!**

"Annabeth…" I started saying, but stopped.

"Lib bi 'lone." Annabeth sniffed, her nose red, her face wet. What she really wanted to say was, "Leave me alone." However, with that stuffy nose and crying voice, it was hard to make things out. But I managed.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. My knuckles stood out more than ever, big an white. Since I had accidentally…ah…trashed our car, we borrowed Bobby's. Since Bobby was shocked by the whole kidnapped goddess news and frightened of the Rage of Annabeth, he consented us to borrow his car. Well, I had to swear to him three times that I wouldn't damage his car in any way. I just hoped that there wasn't a monster attack while I was driving.

She started sobbing again. I rarely saw Annabeth cry. The pregnancy must be affecting her moods overtime. This could not be good for the baby. Her face was red and puffy, and her hair was in tangles. Which was so unlike her that I started getting angry.

"Get a hold of yourself, Wise Girl!" I barked suddenly, and she flinched. Annabeth was surprised. To tell you the truth, so was I. I'm usually a calm, well-tempered person, very much like my mom.

My wife glared at me with The Look that all females can produce, but her red face turned sharper, more into the Annabeth I knew. We were both silent for a few minutes. I could see Min in the side view mirror. She had fallen asleep over an hour ago, and I had gently put her in the back seat.

"Annabeth, I know that this news is making you upset, but what can you do?" I asked. "Would Athena would want you to bawl your eye out while the rest of us did all the work? I thought you had more control."

Those harsh words were delivered with a gentle voice. Annabeth drew herself up defensively. Good. Very rarely was I the voice of reason. It was almost always her, and she knew it.

"For your information, Perseus Jackson, Mom isn't the only thing I'm worried about." Annabeth snapped sounding as Wise Girl-ish as she could ever be, dragging out my name and adding a mix of sarcasm and superiority in her voice. "Although I should be pretty damn worried."

I sighed (which I've been doing a lot of lately) and made a U turn, going exactly against the "No U turn" sign. "Athena can take care of herself. Don't stress out too much."

Both of knew that was true. Although that petty goddess was a downright malicious mother-in-law and son-of-Poseidon hater, she wasn't the goddess of wisdom for nothing. Knowing her, she would concoct some brilliant escape plan and we'd wonder why we even worried in the first place.

"I know Mom can take care of herself." Annabeth said. "She's not stupid, like Ares. She'll try to contact us soon. I know it. And then she'll escape or we'll rescue her, and then everything will be fine and dandy."

Still, I knew it was upsetting for Annabeth. Despite her pure evilness, Athena was her own mother, and the immortal she had looked up to. Athena was the one who had guided her to Luke and Thalia; Athena was the one who gave Annabeth the invisibility hat. Athena had done a lot for Annabeth than most of Olympians did for their half-blood children.

I mean, what if Poseidon got kidnapped? What then? How would I react? And who could've been powerful enough to kidnap a goddess? I decided to ask Annabeth that last question.

"Annabeth, who do you think took Athena?"

Annabeth brooded over it. Her tear-stricken face contemplated who and why. Finally she answered with, "Another immortal, Percy. Who else could be that powerful? Probably another immortal from Uranus's side."

I didn't tell her about my dream about the young god. It didn't seem very important at the time. Besides, I had forgotten something about his face. _Something very important…_

"But other than that, we're not sure." Annabeth sighed. "I don't understand! Uranus doesn't have half as many allies as Kronos did. But why is he becoming so powerful? I think there's something else…"

"Something that the Olympians have been hiding from us?" I asked sharply, and my hands tightened around the steering wheel yet again.

"Yes! No! I don't know?" Annabeth wailed, and wrung her hands. "That's the thing that's frustrating me, Percy! I don't understand some of these things! Didn't you hear about the dragon that's been attacking young half-bloods going on their way to Camp Half-Blood? How does it know when and where the demigods are? It's almost like someone has been giving it orders, but that's almost impossible since dragons aren't that smart. We've already had a fatality thanks to that dragon, some little daughter of Apollo. Not only that, there are sabotages all over the place! Some of our equipment turns out to be missing every now and then. And besides Athena, there have been other kidnaps! Five demigods, in fact. Three of them were young trainees we recently recruited to Camp Half-Blood. And the Olympians have been acting strangely. It's almost as though they know they're going to lose, and they're not trying their best? _Do you understand?"_

"I understand what you're saying, but I don't understand any of that stuff." I answered honestly and shortly. We were getting closer to home now, and I was starting to grow more and more worried.

Annabeth still looked profoundly upset. I didn't blame her. Although our numbers were vastly superior to Uranus's, it was almost as though he had some secret weapon hidden down his sleeve. Maybe he did have one. Or maybe a prophecy recited the downfall of the gods. Something like that.

It was true. Everything Annabeth said was true. There had been kidnaps and sabotages. Uranus was more powerful than he should be. The Olympians acted strangely, and seemed to be withholding a vital piece of information from us. I had originally thought that Uranus would be easier than Kronos. An uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach told me that I was wrong.

I kept thinking, but my mind kept wandering to Annabeth's face. What was up with that? Especially her huge gray eyes. Her pretty eyes. Her incredible eyes.

Seriously. Was it the time to think about that kind of stuff? I mentally kicked myself in the head.

"Ah, we're here!"

Both my wife and I jumped at the sound of Min's cheerful, optimistic voice. How long had she been awake? Had she listened to anything important? Well, it didn't seem so. Still, you could never be too sure, especially with a demigod.

I parked carefully in our garage. Min jumped out of her booster seat, opened the car door, and skipped out. She bounced around, saying stuff like, "I don't want to go to sleep! I'm a big kid now! I'm not sleepy!"

"Oh yes you are, Minnie." Annabeth said, and picked up our squealing daughter.

Annabeth seemed much more cheerful and hearty now, but that was an act because Min was here. Both of us didn't want our daughter to see storm clouds of any sort.

"Go to bed, Min." I called out as Annabeth and Min went to the living room.

I sighed and grimaced once they were gone. It was like there was some sort of burden on my shoulders that couldn't be removed. I should tell Annabeth about that young god. But what of it? He only appeared in my dreams once. Just once. That couldn't mean much. Heck, I dreamt of Kronos dozens of times. While, I was brooding over all of this, I heard a squeal of delight from the living room. It was Min.

Scooter popped out of nowhere and started barking at me. Again. I pushed him away gently with my foot and said, "Not right now, Scoot." The hellhound was so surprised that he bounded away. (I usually ignored him completely or threw him out of the room. I mean literally threw him out.)

I slowly dragged my feet to the living room to see what was going on. There, a surprising sight met my eyes.

It was Thalia. **(AN: Yay! A Thalia appearance. Go me!)**

She was sitting on the couch and wearing ordinary human clothes. Her hair had been cut shorter, and she was considerably tanner, as if she had spent more time outside. Thalia still looked like a fifteen-year-old going on sixteen, but she had an aura of maturity that she had gained since first becoming a Hunter.

Okay, what was the lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis doing here? Sure, she visited occasionally, but she always let us know beforehand. And especially now, in the middle of the night? And not to mention lately she was busy training young half-bloods and recruiting furiously for the Hunters.

"Hiya, Percy. You look well." Thalia greeted me.

"You, too." I replied easily.

Min had gone over to Thalia and was clutching her hand, telling a full account of her day to Aunt Thalia. Annabeth and I exchanged glances? Both of us were thinking the same questions. What was she doing here? Why was she here? Did something happen again?

"Min," Thalia said diplomatically. "Isn't it your bedtime?"

Min instantly grew sour. "I don't wanna! Aunt Thalia, you're gonna go 'way if I go to sleep!"

Thalia nodded her head. "That may be, but it is still time for you to go to sleep."

"C'mon, little rascal." I said, and picked my daughter up. She emitted a noise of fury, and pounded on my back. I ignored it and went upstairs. Along the way, she dropped Aquastar, so I had to pick up the dolphin.

"Don't wanna! Let go of me! Daddy!" Min yelled loudly enough to wake up our neighbors.

I finally reached her room. The whole time, Min had struggled to get out of my tight grip. Even as I set her on the ground, she tried to run away before I caught her by the collar.

"Min." I said sternly. "Aunt Thalia is here on important business. Now be a good girl, brush your teeth, and go to bed."

"Is it about…that guy?" Min whispered. Now her voice was almost reverent, and her face was a little fearful.

"Who's…that guy?" I echoed.

"You know. That guy. Nar and Ian were telling us that he's the guy you guys keep on training and planning for. You're gonna fight him." Min answered/whispered matter-of-factly.

So even my five-year-old daughter knew about Uranus. I had always hoped that the demigod side of our Annabeth and me wouldn't affect our family. At that moment, I realized that I was wrong. (Much later, I would realize that I was dead wrong, and was foolish for even hoping so.)

"Yeah. It's that guy." I finally answered, almost reluctantly.

Min nodded almost wisely. "I'll go to bed now. Bye, Daddy. G'night."

I left my solemn-faced daughter in her room alone. Even Min knew about this stupid war, even though I had tried my best to do the exact opposite. That Nar and that Ian…

I knew it! I knew those boys were no good!

I was planning on how to extract revenge upon those two boys when I finally arrived in the living room. Both Thalia and Annabeth were silent when I entered. When I sat down, Thalia said in a low, flat voice, "They're dead."

"Who?" Annabeth was instantly alert. So was I. Deaths were bad news.

"The five kidnapped demigods who disappeared a few weeks ago." Thalia stated grimly. "Their bodies were discovered just an hour ago, and I came here in person to tell you guys."

The color drained out of Annabeth's face. "But that's impossible! Three of them were just children. What were there ages again? Weren't two of them twelve, and one of the fifteen? Why, even Uranus can't be that cruel!"

"Their bodies were found." Thalia said again, slowly and clearly. "The corpses were found in front of Mount Olympus! The gods are furious, especially the parents of those demigods. They aren't waiting for another Winter Council to properly decide things. All the Olympians have officially declared war."

Both of let that sink in. Five dead half-bloods. Furious Olympians. An official war with Uranus.

"Starting from now, be on the lookout. _You must be very careful_." Thalia continued on in the same serious voice. "Uranus is even more heartless than Kronos, if that's ever possible. He'll never hesitate to just let his forces storm in this house. If things start to get too bad, we'll have to abandon this place. Not only that, monsters will attack you at every moment. Not just you, but Minerva. From now on, you guys will have to fight and give it your all. _Are you ready_?"

Both Annabeth and I exchanged glances again. And both of us knew the answer to Thalia's question.

"Yes."

**Okay, this fic has finally been updated! Like I said, if you want a full explanation for why I didn't update, click on my profile page. Watch out for an OC list for this fic, too. Augh, I think I created too many OCs.**

**Oh, and this chapter is rather…serious. That's because this chapter will help the plot move on. Plus, I wanted Thalia to appear again.**

**Reviews are greatly appreciated, anonymous reviews included. You don't need an account to submit an anonymous review, people!**

**Also, suggestions are also welcome. If you have any, I'll try to use them. (Don't be offended if I don't use yours, though. It might not fit in the plot or something like that.) And they have to make sense. For example, Percy can't be the reincarnation of Uranus so he could beat Kronos because: a) Gods don't die, b) Uranus is the bad guy in this fanfiction, c) Kronos had already been defeated, and d) I don't like the idea. I like adding twists and turns, not clichés. (Although I like some of them…)**

**Anyways, thanks for the reviews. I got over a hundred! Will update soon.**


	11. Chapter 11

"Hi, Silena. And, uh, Nar." I mumbled, greeting them.

"Hello, Percy. How's Min? Is Annabeth here?" Silena asked, not even looking at me while tossing her large, heavy purse at me. (In that way I knew for sure she was related to Athena.)

"No, you just missed her. She went out to get something. She'll be here in another hour or so." I replied as I balanced the purse in one of my hands. "Cecelia and Laurel are here, though."

Silena nodded. "Good, good. Now, Nar, go play with your little friends. And play nice."

The scowling grandson of Aphrodite mumbled something that sounded just vaguely like, "Yes, Mother." and quickly escaped into the next room. I sighed. (Man, I'd been doing a lot of that lately.) Now I had to deal with stupid Narcissus Beuragard. I had to say, the name suited him. (AN: To find out what his name means, look at the OC list!)

"See ya, Percy!" Silena crowed, and breezed into the kitchen where Cecelia and Laurel were.

Part of the reason they were excluding me from their little chat was that I was a man. Silena had recently organized the Demigods' Women Association, also known as the DWA. Annabeth, Cecelia, Laurel, and just about any female half-blood age eighteen or older were members. I didn't see what the use of having that stupid organization was, but nobody dared cross the dreadful females. Nico had jokingly proposed the DMA (Demigods' Men Association), but that didn't generate enough interest to be passed. (Although we were talking about a Young Demigods' Association.)

I really wouldn't have cared except for one thing. One teeny little thing. Let's see, if a bunch of rabid women, most of them mothers, spent a lot of time here, what would happen to their children? Of course they would bring the little brats here. (Just like Silena did with Nar.) And who was left to care of them while the warrior females sipped coffee and discussed whatever they had to discuss?

Yeah. You guessed it. Me.

It was annoying, troublesome, and a source of big headaches. The two most troublesome kids were Nar and Ian. Nar was horribly conceited and rude but clever enough to avoid trouble. Ian was outright sulky and whiny. Even if his parents punished him, his attitude never changed. I hated it whenever they visited here. When both of them were here at the same time, oh dear me. Was I going to need painkillers.

They were both here at the same time right now.

I went to the playroom. Chaos was at full swing around here. Like always. Min and Sonia Stoll were busy ganging up on Paul Nelson and beating him at chess mercilessly. I don't think that Paul even knew the rules to the game, but was still being brutally killed by his cousins. Harry Mars, a grandson of Ares, was chasing around Gabriel Granger, who was wailing in fear and anger. Lily Greene was busy balancing a bunch of books in her hands and looking on helplessly at poor Gabe. Nar smirked, looking on approvingly at the scene. Ian Javenson was busy tossing a small but bouncy ball that zinged all around the room and hit several objects, knocking a majority of them off.

I put both my fingers in my mouth and whistled. Everyone stopped and turned around. Nar stared dumbly at me. Heh. Just like his brain. Get it? Dumbly? Dumb brain? Ha ha ha! (AN: Give it up, Percy. Your jokes are so lame.)

"How'd ya do that?" Harry Mars asked, looking impressed. That is, for an Ares kid. He had finally left the poor son of Demeter alone. "I wanna learn how'ta whistle like that!"

"Tough luck, brat." I snarled. After Nar and Ian, Harry was the one who gave me the most trouble, always picking fights with everyone, even with the only two people (besides his parents and other Ares kids) that he partially got along with. (They were Nar and Ian.) Once I had caught him ripping off the brown hair out of one of Lily's dear dolls, and causing her to cry until hell froze over.

"What do you want, Jackson?" Nar sneered. He was pretty intelligent and could talk like his mom or any other adult demigods. That was saying a lot for an Aphrodite brat.

"Shut up, Beuragard." I snapped at him.

Nar responding by shaking his head with in an almost sorrowful way and saying, "Tsk tsk, Jackson. Adult shouldn't act that way. Keep your temper in control. You should take anger management classes or something."

I suppressed by urge to cave his head in, or at least slash him open with Riptide, and ignored him. Turning to the other children occupying the room, I announced in a loud and clear voice, "Anyone who doesn't behave today won't get a treat."

"What's the treat exactly? We won't behave until you tell us." Nar quipped up, and the other brats murmured agreement. Damn him! Take a deep breath, Percy. He is just a little kid. He can't get to you.

"Chocolate." I replied. "Pure, solid milk chocolate."

This was very agreeable deal, and all the brats fell silent and stopped teasing each other. Ian still had that fixed scowl on his face, but didn't really do anything. Then again, he almost never does anything except sit around and look grumpy. Jeez, demigods were different than in my day.

I sighed, this time in relief. Peace had been restored, at least temporarily. There was just one problem.

I didn't have any chocolate.

Well, that really sucked. After this incident, the whole bribery thing would go down the hole, and I wouldn't be able to get them under control. Unless I got some real chocolate for them.

"Where are you going, Percy?" Cecelia asked when she saw me leaving the house through the back door. She was the only who noticed. Silena and Laurel were busy arguing about the price of peanuts in Peru. Or something along those lines.

"Timbuktu." I snapped at her, still a little angry, and instantly regretted it. Cecelia was always kind and quiet, and very timid and shy. I remembered once that she shared her bow and arrow set with me during my first year at Camp Half-Blood when I forgot one.

"Sorry about that, Cecelia." I sighed. (AN: Percy is sighing too much!) "It's just that, well…"

Then I poured my heart out to her. I told her about Annabeth's pregnancy troubles and temper, and my worry about that. I told her about how the mini-demigods were annoying. I told her that I was extremely worried about the war with Uranus, and how he was more powerful than he seemed, and how the Olympians seemed rather depressed of late, and how it was nearly impossible that Athena, my insufferable mother-in-law, still hadn't escaped or been rescued even though she was the goddess of wisdom.

Bless Cecelia. She didn't even interrupt once, but patiently listened through all of it with a thoughtful expression on her face. When I finished with, "And now I have to run to the nearest store and by some chocolate or I'll never get those brats under control!"

She spoke in her quiet voice, but this time there was firmness to it. "You're trying too hard, Percy."

"What do you mean?" I protested. "I'm just doing my part!"

"But you just hold all your worry and trouble inside of you." Cecelia replied matter-of-factly. "You're worried about the people close to you, but you're obviously not worrying about yourself, Percy. I bet you never told anyone about all of this, except for me. Am I right?"

I nodded grudgingly.

"A certain woman once told me," Cecelia began. "That sometimes when you seemed overwhelmed, you should take one deep breath, and go one step at a time. You should try that. Don't let everything overwhelm you."

I nodded, but this time gratefully. It was a good piece of advice, given to me by a daughter of Demeter I half-knew. Who would've thought of that? You would expect something like that to come from a daughter of Athena, like Annabeth. But I guess that just because you were smart didn't mean that you knew everything. Or something like that.

"Well, I have to go now." Cecelia finally broke the silence. She silently stepper out of the house, and was walking away when I called out, "Wait!"

She stopped, hesitated, and turned around with a curious look to her face.

"Who was that woman who told you that?" I yelled. "Who?"

Cecelia' face broke into a smile, and she said, "Annabeth Chase."

Oh jeez. Now my wife even affected me indirectly in this kind of way.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Taking up Cecelia's advice (kind of Annabeth's advice), I took a deep breath and went one step at a time.

The first thing I did (after taking a deep breath, that is) was to enter my study, which was actually Annebeth's library and my study combined, and research.

Now usually, I don't research. That's Annabeth and the other Athena's children's area of expertise. But since half of the usually cold-blooded Athena children were almost thrown into some sort of panic since the disappearance of their mother, the research went at a much slower pace. Besides, research was not being appreciated at this time. Right now, it was time for sharpening of swords and clashes with the enemy.

Athena was right in a way. Sometimes brute strength kept us from seeing the truth. She once told me that. (In a snotty voice, too. At the time, it was just one of her many little comments that she made to make me mad.) Because I found out something crucial that later helped me that day.

After I finished browsing through some dusty old tomes that were a small part of Annnabeth's vast book collection, I finally hit upon a book about Athena. I've already read several myths and legends about Athena, but not entire book. Purposely, of course. I never really wanted to have a nice friendly chat with her.

I'll be blunt. The book was dense, overcomplicated, and boring. Blah blah blah. Athena. Blah blah blah. Daughter of Zeus. Blah blah blah. Goddess of wisdom. Blah blah blah. From that book (which was obviously written by some mortal), I learned everything possible about Athena. I learned about her potential mother (some goddess name Metis), how some prophecy said that if she was a boy, she would overthrow Zeus (Metis's son), about her relationship with her father and the other Olympians, her powers and symbols, descriptions of her physical and mental attributes, and blah blah blah.

After about an hour, I was so frustrated that I slammed the book shut.

Okay. That step didn't work.

A little discouraged, I decided to rest and take a nap. Surely it would be better if my mind was refreshed and my body rested before tackling the books again to find a way to defeat Uranus. Most of all, I wanted to find out why Athena had been kidnapped. Why Athena? Why her? Surely she was a good prize, but weren't there better immortals? Zeus, for example. Even my own father seemed better to kidnap.

I don't know how long it took to drift on into sleep, but I dreamed. About the young god. Again. This time, though, I remembered the crucial thing.

There he was again, in the same dark, shadowy place. Where was it? I had the feeling it was in the Underworld, because it had that sense of gloom. This time, there was a big difference. A motionless figure lay unconscious at his feet. I didn't know who it was.

"Back?" the young god snarled. Again, I could not see his face, but I had the feeling that he was smirking.

He stepped out of the shadows. He really was smirking. And his eyes…

"Oh, is the half-blood concerned? Fear not, for we will give you three chances to join us. You will see your opportunity soon…soon…soon…"

His voice echoed ominously around me. Then I woke up.

As brief as that dream segment was, I was positive of one thing. His eyes…were the same as Annabeth's, Min's, and Athena's. A cloudy, stormy, all-knowing gray. And then I remembered something else.

Damn. I had forgotten to get the chocolate.

**I actually finished the OC list first, but I felt cheap just updating with that list, so I waited until this was finished. Enjoy!**


	12. The OC List Read it and weep

**The Original Character List!**

**A list of the OCs that run around in this fanfiction. There are so many that I have a hard time keeping track of them. I'm pretty sure you do, too. So I made up this fabulous list! After Soon to be Revealeds are finally revealed, I'll go back and edit this chapter to include them.**

Minerva Pearl Jackson: The five-year-old daughter of Percy and Annabeth. A bit of a typical little girl, but Percy and Annabeth just plain love her. Her nicknames are "Min" and "Minnie." Blood type B, gray eyes, and black hair. She will be the main character in my other fanfiction that I'll write after I completed this one. "Minerva" is pretty much the name of Athena in the Roman language, and "Pearl" is for Poseidon's underwater jewels.

Sonia Stoll: The six-year-old daughter of Travis Stoll and Minerva, another OC of mine. Despite her parents' strong auras, she has an average one at best. Although she isn't as strong as a demigod as she should be, she is a determined and stubborn demigod. Friends with Min and Lily, and also a cousin to Min. Blood type A, gray eyes, brown hair. I picked her name at random, but it sounds good with "Stoll."

Lily Greene: The five-year-old daughter of Demeter. Apparently, her father rejected her completely and sent her to live in an orphanage. Later, she was adopted by her half-sister, Cecelia. She is also painfully shy and has an inferiority complex. Friends with Min and Sonia. Blood type A, blond hair, and green eyes. The origin of her name is rather obvious, Lily being a flower, and green being the color of plants.

Narcissus Beuragard: The six-year-old son of Silena. He has a noticeably large ego for such a short thing, and Percy dislikes him intensely. His unknown father is one of Silena's many boyfriends. His nickname is "Nar." He doesn't really get along with anyone. But it seems as though most of my readers' favorite Min pairing is MinxNar so far. Blood type B, black hair, brown eyes. The origin of his name can either be from the word "narcissist" or from the myth of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection.

Paul Nelson: The three-year-old son of another OC, and a grandson of Apollo. His mother died due to a monster attack shortly after he was born. His aunt, Darlene Nelson, acts as a mother for him. He is still short, small, and very young. Blood type O, blond hair, and blue eyes. His name was also chosen at random.

Ian Javenson: The eight-year-old grandson of Aphrodite. His parents aren't very important, so I'm not including them in the storyline. He is often bitter and angry, and has an explosive temper. The only person he partially gets along with is his cousin, Nar Beauragard. Blood type B, red hair, blue eyes. His name was also chosen at random.

Gabriel Granger: The two-year-old grandson of Athena. Like Ian, his parents will not be making an appearance. He is the youngest child so far, and very cute and cheerful. Min, Sonia, and Lily like dressing him up and playing with him. Blood type O, brown hair, brown eyes. "Granger" means farmer.

Harris "Harry" Mars: The five-year-old grandson of Ares and nephew of Clarisse. He is very much like the average son of Ares, rough, grumpy, and tough. He hates everybody excluding Nar and Ian, whom he can vaguely tolerate. Surprisingly skilled at sewing and crafts. Blood type B, brown hair, brown eyes.

Alya Rivers: Soon to be revealed.

Dominic and Daniel Li: Soon to be revealed.

Caitlin Styx: Soon to be revealed.

The Potential Jackson: Soon to be revealed.

The Adults 

Cole Nelson: The son of Apollo, brother to Richard and Darlene Nelson, and father to Paul Nelson. He is rather serious, and is very busy most of the time. Although he has never admitted it, he misses his older brother. He and his full siblings were known as the "Nelson Trio" until Richard ran away. Then he and Darlene were the "Nelson Duo." Blood type O, blond hair, and blue eyes. I named him after an old classmate of mine while I was flipping though yearbooks.

Darlene Nelson: The daughter of Apollo, little sister to Richard and Cole Nelson, and aunt to Paul Nelson. She's a more light-hearted counterpart to her solemn brother, and has amazing archery skills. At one point, she almost joined the Hunters of Artemis. Blood type O, blond hair, and blue eyes. Randomly chosn name.

Richard Nelson: The son of Apollo, older brother to Cole and Darlene Nelson. Nobody knows if he is alive of dead. (Actually, he's alive.) He used to spoil his younger sister, and teach things to his brother. He was written off as another goofy, good-hearted son of Apollo until the Titans' War, where he was a spy for Kronos. Blood type O, blond hair, blue eyes.

Minerva Tudor: The daughter of Apollo, and half-sister to Annabeth. Very smart (duh!), crafty, and clever, but also kinder than the average Athena child. She is the mother to Sonia Stoll, and had an on-off relationship with Travis Stoll. Blood type A, brown hair, gray eyes.

Cecelia Stuart: The daughter of Demeter, and guardian and aunt of Lily Greene. She is often shy, stutters occasionally, and blushes often. Known for her quiet kindness, stealth, and efficient mothering abilities. (During the Titans' War, she was a spy for the Olympians.) Her hobbies are reading and writing. Blood type A, blond hair, and green eyes.

Jason: Son of Apollo. Okay, not really an OC. See page 83 of Titan's Curse, where he is mentioned once and will probably never have a role in the future books. However, I expanded his personality and abilities. He is a fast runner, and married to Laurel. Blood type B, blond hair, and blue eyes.

Laurel: Daughter of Demeter. Not exactly OC. See page 83 of TC. She is mentioned once briefly with Jason, but will probably never have a role future books. However, I have expanded her personality and abilities. She is a fast runner, and married to Jason. Blood type O, red hair, and green eyes.


	13. Chapter 13

Both of us, hidden in the natural green foliage of the forest spied at the scene through two powerful pairs of binoculars. It was an easy mission. We just had to secure the forest around Camp Half-Blood, double check to see if the borders of the camp were functioning, and then breeze back home. We were both very powerful demigods, and ideal for this mission, but you never would've thought that listening to our conversation. It went a little something like this:

"Um, are you sure this is a good idea, Clarisse?"

"Of course it is, Jackson! Now shaddup and watch." (AN: Shaddup is shut up if you finely educated folks don't know.)

"Yeah, but-"

"Shh!"

"But-"

"Quiet!"

"B-"

"I said shut up!"

I did what Clarisse told me to and shut up. We were both dressed in those army camouflage colors, and had black streaks across our cheeks. Clarisse's idea. She had also carried a big boom box with her. I didn't ask what it was for, but soon found out. As soon as we both started inspecting the area, she turned on music. James Bond. I tried telling her that loud music might give us away if anyone was hiding around here, especially James Bond music. She slapped me as hard as Annabeth.

Clarisse was such a nuisance. Loud, proud, bossy, arrogant, stubborn, demanding, big, and outright mean. She was also still weird. The daughter of Ares hadn't changed much since I last saw her except get taller, tougher, and use more bad language more freely. And, of course, she still despised my guts, and yet admired me in her own twisted little way. See what I mean by weird?

She didn't come around headquarters often, but she still was a member of that freaky all girls women association. Clarisse preferred to be out on the battlefield, and she hated the little gossiping circles the organization usually made. That's why I didn't see her as much as I saw Cecelia, or Minerva (Annabeth's half-sister, not my daughter), or even Thalia (who came every now and then to visit), or even (God forbid) Silena.

But why did I still say what she told me to do?

"Clarisse. This is not a good plan, it's not going to work, and I have to be at work in exactly one hour and sixteen minutes. Give it a rest." I told her, and threw my hands out in exasperation.

"I thought you said you hated your job." Clarisse said crisply.

"I do not! Well kind of. But a man's got to support his family." I defended myself.

"Get a new job. Loser." Clarisse snapped, and then proceeded in ignoring me.

I mentally sighed in exasperation. Great, now I was sighing even mentally! How pathetic was that? It was just that the stress of being a husband, father, warrior, and grumpy insurance company worker was getting to me.

_Take a deep breath and go one step at a time._

Cecelia's advice using Annabeth's words came back to me. Yes, I should do that right now instead of sighing, mentally or physically.

I took a deep breath.

"What's the matter, Jackson? Having trouble breathing?" Clarisse snickered as she peeked in her binoculars. "You have asthma? I never knew that you could breath better underwater than in real air."

Yup, Clarisse definitely hadn't changed much.

"I repeat, this is not a very good idea." I said. Then I sighed. Then I mentally kicked myself. Didn't I just tell myself that I shouldn't sigh a much!

"All I'm doing is trying to make the world a better place." Clarisse answered gruffly, and then threw her binoculars at me. Luckily, I caught them before they hit me square on the face. I think she was a little disappointed.

"And who's idea was this getup?" I motioned vigorously toward our clothes. The kind you would see in the army, not at Camp Half-Blood. Our cheeks were also smeared in some kind of ash, and we both wore helmets.

"I told you already. My idea. Now, listen up."

"No. We are not moving the Golden Fleece. It's risky as it is."

"Stupid. It's going to strengthen the camp boundaries if we put it right over there!"

"No, it's not! It'll be farther from the Thalia Tree!"

Thalia's tree was a legend. Everyone knew the story of Thalia and her tree, and how it guarded the young demigods from attacks. Everyone also knew about Thalia herself, the daughter of Zeus, Artemis Hunters' lieutenant, and one of the brave heroes during the Titans' War. Thalia had become as legendary as one of the old Greek mythology figures, as did I. (Interesting to note that I didn't have a special site dedicated to me, unless you counted the creek, which was unofficially dubbed the "Jackson-Storm Creek" because of the fight Thalia and I had there once. (AN: You know, the fight that Thalia and Percy had in the Titan's Curse? The one that ended up as a draw because of the stupid interfering Oracle?)

"The Thalia Tree? Who cares about that stupid plant?" Clarisse snorted, obviously not caring about the almost sacred camp landmark type thing.

"It's camp history." I argued. "The Golden Fleece with the Thalia Tree has become almost a tradition, and everyone knows the story! Besides, Thalia will be offended if she ever hears of this."

"I'm not scared of that girl. I even stole her taco once!" Clarisse yelled at me, and stray bits of spit hit me on the face. I think she did that on purpose.

"The Fleece belongs with the tree." I stated calmly, ignoring the spit.

"Don't get so cocky because of that stupid creek. I mean, who wants to name a stupid bit of water after you and that Lightning Queen? You're a loser, she's a loser, and I win."

Clarisse called Thalia "Lightning Queen" a few times back when we were the young demigod-in-training.

"I refuse to let you move that stupid Fleece." I declared.

Clarisse snarled, slapped me across the face, and stomped away. Jeez, she needed to have anger management lessons. Ah, it reminded me of the good old days.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"Annabeth! I'm hoooooooome!" I called out.

No answer, but I could hear the TV turned on. Oh no. Not again.

Annabeth had been getting pissed off at me lately, because I was almost always late getting home now, past Min's bedtime half of the time. This was the third time this week, and it was Wednesday. It wasn't like it was my fault, though. The insurance company combined with demigod-like duties were a bit stressful, and took up a lot of time. If I had my way, I wouldn't even be working for an insurance company. My mean boss, Mr. Kraken, had been keeping me overtime lately. Yes, Mr. Kraken. Even his name sounded monstrous.

"Annabeth! I said I'm home!" I called out again, even more loudly.

No answer yet again. The sounds of the TV became louder. Annabeth had turned up the volume.

"I'm going to eat dinner!" I yelled.

The sound of the TV became even louder. She was still angry and ignoring me. She was getting into her sixth month of pregnancy, and her mood swings, food cravings, general temper, and watching TV became unbearable. That weird DWA organization had showered her with things for the baby. That worried me. I didn't want this freaky all-girls organization led by _Silena Beuragard_ of all people to influence my unborn daughter.

The baby would be a girl!

I sighed, and then hit myself. Not mentally, this time. Physically on the wall.

When I went into the kitchen, on the table there were two plates. One was empty, but had some leftover grease on it. (That looked tough to clean up, too.) The other one had exactly one piece of chicken, one piece of broccoli, and about a spoonful of cold rice.

"Ha ha. Very funny." I called out to Annabeth.

Louder volume.

I didn't sigh, but instead sat down and stared at my pitiful meal. I guess Annabeth really liked her jokes, except it wasn't funny to me. I was hungry. My stomach grumbled loudly, and I blushed, embarrassed. (AN: Aw! Blushing Percy!)

Just then, there was the sound of mad barking beneath my feet, and I felt something hairy nudge my leg. It was that bothersome hellhound. Scooter K. Jackson.

Scooter barked again at me, but not in a friendly dog way. Nah, he barked at me like the way a guard dog would bark at an intruder. Which, of course, frustrated me. My wife was mad at me, my jobs (both demigod and insurance) had gone rather badly, and I was hungry. On top of that, this hellhound that stupid Nico gave me was bothering me. And I was the one (besides Annabeth) who earned money for Scooter's upkeep!

I aimed carefully. Then I kicked him. Revenge is so sweet.

Scooter ran out of there, tail between his legs, whimpering and howling the whole time. I felt a little guilty, but I cut myself some slack. After all, this was a bad day. Plus, the handprint mark Clarisse imprinted on my face was still there, even though it was fading.

"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDDDYYYYYYYYYYY!" Min cried out.

"Yes, Min?" I called back.

"It's Scooter! I think he's been hurt." Min said, and she appeared at the doorway, holding onto a still-whimpering Scooter in her arms.

"What a pity. I wonder how he got hurt." I remarked dryly, but Min was too young and innocent to know what sarcasm was. Still fussing over that hellhound, she left, promising Scooter candy and cake.

I made a mental note to secure any and all candy and cake.

Stupid Annabeth. Who cared if she was my wife? Giving me only this much food. Instead of going to the fridge and getting something, I angrily glared at my plate and angsted about how horrible my married life was.

Just then, I heard a noise. It was the sound of a door opening. Then I heard Scooter barking again, and Min saying, "Hi, Mommy!"

"Hi, Min. Sorry I took so long. They ran out of milk, so I had to go to another store to get a gallon!" Annabeth's voice drifted into the kitchen.

Wait a minute…

No, wait a second…

If Annabeth just came, then who the hell was in our family room, watching TV?

I bolted out of the kitchen, passed a slightly stunned Annabeth and Min, and finally barged into our family room.

It was Nico. Watching TV. With my remote.

He looked up and smiled weakly. "Uh, hey. You got a haircut, Percy."

"You are sooooo dead." I said, and lunged at him.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

How did Nico escape my wrath? Well, while he was screaming for mercy in a rather high-pitched voice, Annabeth pulled me off.

About five minutes later, my murderous rage at Nico breaking into the house, watching my TV, and (by the looks of it) eating half of our food. And drinking all our milk! (Annabeth told me that Nico had quite an appetite. The reason she went shopping was for food. And milk. God, I love milk! It's like water!)

Eventually, Nico stammered out an explanation, assisted by my more clear-headed wife. He had not broken into our house at all. Instead, he came because he couldn't afford the rent to his apartment again, and was looking for someplace to live until he raised enough money. (Jeez, you would think that being super-rich Uncle Hades's son, you would have enough to money for rent for one month in a broken-down place like the one Nico lives in.) Annabeth, out of pity and some bribery, reluctantly accepted him. Then Nico proceeded in raiding our fridge and drinking all our milk. Then Annabeth had gone out shopping to get more food.

I nodded throughout the whole explanation. Finally, I asked him, "Why don't you get a job?"

Nico looked rather miffed. "I do have a job!"

I snorted. "I don't call being a failing artist who lives off macaroni and cheese a job."

It was true. Nico did live off a lot of instant food, particularly macaroni and cheese. He lived in the bad part of town for a reason. He wasn't a well-known artist, or (in my opinion) a particularly talented one. I tried convincing him to go to college. (It had been agreed that in the event that Nico did decided to attend college, Hades would fork up some cash.) But no, he didn't! He said college was "restricting," and he hated to live off charity. (It wasn't charity. It was his own father's money, for pete' sake!)

"So! You hate your job! I would rather have a failing job I love rather than a stupid job I hate!" Nico countered.

"A man need to support his family!" I yelled back, and balled up my fist. Annabeth saw and sent me a look. I dropped my fist, a little disappointed. Just a little.

"So! Unlike you, I use condoms!" Nico shouted back, waving his hands in the air, being all expressive like always.

"You!" I screeched in a voice that sounded very much unlike mine. "YOOUUU!"

"I what? Huh huh? Bring it Jackson! Bring it!"

Both of us glared at each other, and raised our fists to hit each other…

…when Annabeth screamed, "Enough!" and hit us on the head. It hurt.

Suddenly, Nico looked like he remembered something. Then he looked panicked. He ran to the phone, yelling, "Crap! I forgot all about her!"

"Forgot all about who?" Annabeth

Nico frantically punched in some numbers into our phone. "My sister. She has a bad temper. She is going to kill me."

Annabeth and I exchanged glances. Then I said, "Nico, Bianca is…dead."

"Not Bianca." Nico told us as the phone started its first ring. "My evil, little sister. Caitlin Styx. Daughter of Hades."

"WHAT?" I yelled out, and pounded my fist on the…leather couch. "DAUGHTER OF HADES?"

And that is how I learned of Caitlin Styx, the first in a new generation of children of the Big Three.

**End of another chapter! Hooray. I also wrote two special little extras to go with this chapter. Scroll down to see.**

**Suggestions, comments, reviews, etc. are always welcome. Have a nice day.**

_Extra: The Taco Thief_

_Thalia looked up, startled._

"_Anything wrong, milady?" a Hunter asked, dipping her bow in the arrow, and then scrubbing it hard with some soap._

"_No. I just have the oddest feeling that, well…"_

"_Hey, do you want a taco?" another Hunter popped into the scene. She was carrying a greasy "Taco Bell" bag. She handed one to Thalia and the other Hunter._

"_Thanks a lot." Thalia stared off into the distance. "You know, I have the weirdest feeling that my taco thief all those years ago is talking about my tree. I think it has something to do with Percy Jackson. I'm going to pay him a visit and ask him about that."_

"_Talking about your tree in a positive way, or in a negative way, milady?" the first Hunter asked, taking a greedy bite out of her chicken taco._

"_In a negative way…" Thalia paused and then looked down at the food in her hands. "Ooh! I love guacamole sauce! Quick! Get me some more!"_

Extra: The Fury of Caitlin

"AUUGH! WHERE IS THAT USELESS BROTHER OF MINE?" Caitlin Styx, age seven going on eight, screamed, stomping her feet.

All the other children, ranging from age four to ten, stayed a close distance away. One little five-year-old boy whimpered in fear, and his behind his older brother. Even the teachers, intimidated, didn't attempt to soothe her anger.

"NICO DI ANGELO! YOU ARE SOOOOOOOO DEAD!" Caitlin continued on screaming.

Then she let loose a string of words that a seven-year-old shouldn't know.

Where did that girl learn to cuss?


	14. Chapter 14

"Wait, so Hades had another child?" I repeated.

"Yes," Nico gritted his teeth. "How many times do I have to tell you that?"

"It is a little…shocking." Annabeth admitted.

Obviously, Nico didn't care whether we were shocked or not. Instead, he looked rather panicked and scared. He groaned out, "Augh. She's going to kill me. She isn't a daughter of Hades for nothing."

"Daughter of Hades? You mean like…Bianca?" I asked, thinking back on the kind, slightly shy twelve-year-old girl who had sacrificed her life so that Thalia and I (and at that time, Zoë) could survive. I hadn't thought of Bianca in years. I also had a slightly uneasy feeling, since I felt a pang of guilt whenever I brooded on her death. If Nico was still angry at me for her death, I would've died of guilt a long time ago.

"Yeah, like Bianca." Nico snapped sarcastically. He twirled with the cord of the phone. He had dialed the number, talked with the person on the other end briefly, and then hung up. "No, dimwit. Bianca was a nice sister. Caitlin is a true terror from hell."

"Oh, am I?"

We all turned around sharply to the voice. At the doorway, was a girl. Caitlin Styx. Age seven. Daughter of Hades. Self-proclaimed hellhound trainer.

An, as I would later find out, almost a female counterpart of Nar Beauragard.

Caitlin did look a lot like the late Bianca di Angelo, despite the fierce scowl on her face. There were some differences, though. Her skin was rather pale, not the same olive color as Bianca's and Nico's, and some of her features seemed softer, too, despite her personality. She had black hair and sharp, black eyes that were currently narrowed in distaste. (I would find out they were almost always narrowed in distaste.) She was short for a seven-year-old, but height didn't matter, especially with the way she slaps.

She also had tasteless clothes. Well, not tasteless, if you really thought about it. Still, I didn't like it. She had on a frilly black dress that looked like it belonged in the last century, an equally dark, oversized hat, shiny black dress shoes, and some kind of necklace with a delicate black ornament on it. She was also holding something in her arms that looked like a little person, but it turned out to be a doll clothed in black.

"Caitlin!" Nico squealed. "How long have you been there?"

Caitlin looked down at her watch. Rolex, too. I wondered where she got it. "I've been here for five minutes and two seconds."

"I'm so sorry!" Nico wrung his hands in a distressed way. Any second I thought he would go on his knees." Please forgive me!"

Caitlin walked on over to her brother. She completely ignored me and Annabeth, which I found incredibly rude. Then she looked at her brother straight in the eye, and said, "You forgot, didn't you?"

And Nico really did go on his knees. I suppressed a groan. Be a man, Nico! Have some dignity! Don't be intimidated by this little girl!

And then…she slapped him.

A short seven-year-old brat slapped the famous Nico di Angelo.

Very hard. Even harder than the slap Clarisse so kindly gave me earlier today.

Nico flew to the other side of the room and groaned in pain, rubbing at a fresh handprint mark on his cheek. Wow, Caitlin was strong. That probably came from being a demigod, especially a kid of that stupid uncle of mine. But that was beside the point at the moment.

"Caitlin…so sorry…" Nico whimpered, and quickly scooched to the corner of the room. He tenderly touched the handprint mark again, and then quickly drew away in pain. It looked like it was going to leave a bruise.

"You should be!" Caitlin stated in a calm and cool voice. Then she cussed. She cussed badly. She cussed so badly that I knew that Nico and Grover had some influence over her. She cussed so badly that I knew that she watched late night TV. She cussed so badly that I knew that I needed to get that brat away from my pure and non-late TV watching daughter. She cussed so badly that I knew she could outcuss me. She could even probably outcuss Clarisse. That's saying a lot.

And that is how I first met Caitlin Styx, who cussed badly, who had Nico as a guardian, who was a daughter of Hades, and who was also enjoyed torturing me, as well as everybody else. She was also the same tough Caitlin who had a long and winding road ahead of her, who was really a good person, and would become one of Min's good friends.

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At the same time I met Caitlin Styx, two brothers and their friend were nearby, looking for refuge.

"Alya, where are you going?" Dominic asked as the girl started wandering off.

The girl smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "Sorry. It's just…I felt weird for minute."

The two brothers were Dominic and Daniel Li. Their friend was Alya Rivers. I would meet them soon. But not right now.

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Caitlin was upstairs with Min. Although I hadn't wanted her to be with my little Min, but Nico had insisted on getting the little girl out of the way, and this way was the fastest (as well as the safest) way. I just prayed that nothing too bad would happen. Especially that goth girl influencing my little Minnie. Seriously, what kind of a seven-year-old wears all black, and such old-fashioned clothes, too!

"Explain." Annabeth said flatly as we sat around our little table. She had offered Nico some tea, but he refused. He drank some very strong coffee, though, saying that he needed the caffeine to stay awake.

"How can I explain? There are some parts I don't know myself. I don't even know who Caitlin's mom is, and whether or not she's dead or alive." Nico said, and ran his fingers through his dark hair. "Whenever I ask, Caitlin says something evasive like, 'I don't have a mother' or 'I used to live far away.' Or she just glares at me and tells me to shut up."

He took another sip of his coffee and then continued with, "I've been her guardian for two weeks. Two weeks, and it's been like Father's kingdom."

"You mean like…hell?" I asked, swirling my own cup of coffee with a teaspoon.

"No, I meant the Land of the Sugar Drops, where Hades reigns supreme. Yes, you idiot! I meant hell!" Nico roared at me in a way like Uncle Hades once did.

I did not whimper.

Okay, maybe once. But it was so small that nobody noticed.

"Look, she came to my doorstep about two weeks ago with a suitcase, and her doll. Did you notice the doll she was carrying around?"

"What doll? I didn't see any doll." Annabeth snapped.

"It's over there." Nico motioned to the couch. Annabeth and I turned around to stare at the doll.

It stared back. It looked like an ordinary doll other than the fact it seemed so…melancholy. It had black hair that curled down to its waist, pale porcelain skin, dark brown eyes, and a gloomy black dress on. It looked pretty expensive, but was also dark and depressing at the same time. And it seemed as if that doll was alive, and it was staring at me.

After staring at it for a full minute, I realized something. That doll looked a lot, and I mean a LOT, like Caitlin Styx.

"That is creepy." Annabeth said, and I full-heartedly agreed.

"You think that's creepy! Well, what if I told you that Caitlin is looking at you. Right now. Through the doll." Nico snorted, and finished his coffee.

Annabeth and I both jumped simultaneously in our seats, and then glanced nervously at that staring doll.

"You're not serious." Annabeth whispered.

"I am serious." Nico said, and then told us the entire story with Caitlin. We didn't interrupt him at all. Not even once.

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Flashback of how Nico met Caitlin

Nico di Angelo yawned and irritably turned off his alarm clock. Stupid alarm clock. Whose stupid idea was it to get that? Oh yeah. Bianca always used an alarm clock, and he had always continuously used one out of habit. Nico couldn't bring himself to say that Bianca's ideas were stupid. Because they never were.

Ah. Why did his bossy sister have to bug him so much, even after all these years? Nico felt the same feeling in his stomach whenever he thought of his sister, a feeling of soft sorrow mixed in with a warm fondness and total depression. His anger at Percy had faded long ago. Bianca herself had once said, "Don't blame others when it's not their fault, Nico."

_I don't anymore, Bianca._ Nico thought. _I don't blame because I can never feel angry anymore._

Thinking of his sister was so depressing sometimes. Sometimes she would just inch into his thoughts without him knowing, and it would be hard to get rid of her. Sometimes she came in bursts of nice memories, the time when his usually soft-spoken sister punched that bully square in the face, the time when she scraped enough money she found around the orphanage to get some candy, the time when they went to the park and bought ice creams, which happened back when their mom was alive.

Nico yawned again, and stretched out his arms. Then he scratched his stomach, and then yawned again.

All in all, it was a rather generic, boring, everyday start of the morning. Nico got up reluctantly, brushed his teeth, showered, and then stole the newspaper from old Mrs. Fridely next door again once he found out his stupid television still didn't work. Seriously, he needed someone to fix that TV. But of course, that cost money, and money was something Nico didn't really have. In fact, he was wondering if he could scrape together the 600 dollars for rent.

Nico peeked into his fridge and sighed. He checked the banana yogurt. Still not past the expiration date, so it was edible. Nico looked in despair at his almost empty fridge, and stuck his hand in to get half of an eaten sandwich. He finally got out the last item. Or items. They were a bunch of potatoes. Potatoes were cheap and nutritious. Nico hated things that were nutritious. He sighed, and put the food on the table. Pitiful. Just pitiful.

You would think that a child of the Olympians, especially a child of the Big Three, and particularly the only living child of Hades would at least have some money to live off of something other than…this stuff. But as it was, Nico didn't have money. He was the black sheep of the Hades children. Whatever expectations his father had secretly expected of him, Nico failed. He doubted that he wanted his only son to be an aspiring artist on welfare who had no interest in glory and honor for the Hades name.

Still, Nico had some measure of pride in him, pride that every demigod had. For one thing, no matter how bad his situation was, he wasn't in debt. He refused to borrow money. Twice, he had been kicked out of shabby apartments in the poor parts of the Big Apple. The first time he went to Grover's until his welfare check finally arrived. The second time he bunked at Beckendorf's, and managed to get another part-time job in his schedule.

There was a pounding noise on the door. Nico hoped that it wasn't his landlord demanding rent, and went over to the door. He opened it.

Nico could see the top of the head of a dark-haired girl who was clutching onto a porcelain doll rather tightly. There was a plain brown suitcase next to her. She looked up with her piercing eyes, and said, "Hi. My name is Caitlin."

"Um…hi…Caitlin?" Nico stuttered, wondering why the hell a little girl was there. With a suitcase, no less. "My name is Nico."

"Good." Caitlin said, and then stomped into the room. She set here suitcase on Nico's table, next to the potatoes, and sat down on the couch. All in two seconds. Then she stared at him for a long time.

"Wait. What the _(beep)_ are you doing?" Nico asked angrily, tapping his foot on the floor.

"I'm going to live here from now on. My name is Caitlin. I'm seven years old. I was born on May 4th. I don't have a mother." Caitlin recited matter-of-factly with melancholy eyes.

"What right does that give you to come into my house…um…apartment?" Nico demanded.

"Father told me to come here. Father said you would take care of me." Caitlin said, and then paused. "Father said that besides me, you were his only child."

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"And that's what happened." Nico said.

"That's it?" I squeaked.

Nico nodded. "That's it."

"No it's not! For one thing, if you know nothing about the mother, then how do you know Caitlin's last name! Another thing is how did you take care of her? And how did you have enough money to put her in a daycare? And do the proper authorities know?" Annabeth demanded. She was one sharp woman, pregnant or not.

"Caitlin doesn't have a last name. Whenever I asked her, she said she didn't have one. So I made up on for her. You know, the Styx River? Anyways, I put her in a daycare center because it was free. And the proper authorities do know. They think that she's my half-sister who doesn't have a single relative. I think Hades had something to do with that." Nico replied easily.

Hades. Meddlesome god. Troubling uncle. Seriously, why was it me who had to have the weird family? There was my ocean dad who I hadn't seen since the Titans' War except for that one time with Min. Then there were my two all-powerful uncles who despised me. And then don't even get started on my second cousins through Dad's side. I hate to think that I'm related to Ares. And there are my mortal in-laws who are REALLY annoying. They also despise me. Except maybe old Fred, Annabeth's dad. But he's Annabeth's dad!

My mental tirade over, I looked at Nico even closer. He looked tired. I felt another guilty pang, but this time over another di Angelo. Why hadn't I ever noticed how hard Nico work to achieve his dream, only to fail?

"So. Do you mind if I stay here?" Nico chirped brightly, with such hope in his eyes that I knew I couldn't refuse him.

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"G'night, Percy." Annabeth yawned, and fell instantly asleep, snoring loudly, a barrier of pillows she had made while painting her toenails separating us. Even though I knew that the pregnancy made Annabeth tired, I felt so lonely.

I stared off into the dark, wondering what dream I would have next. If I had one. Seriously, did being Poseidon's child ever entail that you were going to have prophetic dreams? You would expect that from a child of Apollo, and only a few of the Apollo kids I knew back at camp had prophetic dreams. Lucky me. I guess.

I hugged my pillow close to me. It was soft, but not the one I wanted. I threw it away and grabbed for the next pillow. It felt weird. I screamed the house down.

Annabeth woke up instantly. Scooter also ran for the door and started pawing it, whimpering the entire time. Min reached the door and opened it, letting Scooter and herself in. Caitlin entered a few seconds later, looking calm. Annabeth turned on the lamp and asked drowsily, "What's the matter, Percy?"

"That. That's the matter." I said, pointing to newly awoken and grumbling Nico.

"What the? What the _(beep)_ are you doing in our bed!" Annabeth shrieked. Then she looked nervously at Min, and said, "Forget that word I used, honey."

"Got tired. Hate sleeping on the couch. 'Night." Nico yawned and fell into our bed again. "And Percy. Please don't grab on to my hair ever again. It makes me feel uncomfortable."

"You are going into the couch. And you are going to like it." Annabeth hissed, and proceeded in dragging and hitting Nico out of the room at the same time. I don't know how she did it, but she did it. He yelped the whole time. They sounded very satisfying.

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I dreamt about Athena that night. I just saw her with that young god. That's all I remember.

**BIG Extra and BIG Spoiler (Read at your own risk):**

"Heeeeey!" Lily Greene called out to her friend, Min Jackson.

Min stiffened, then recognized the voice, turned around, and grinned heartily at her incoming friend. "Hi, Lily! I thought you had detention today."

Lily smiled brightly as she finally caught up to the Jackson. "Nah. Caitlin made a lot of trouble, so the teacher excused the rest of us so he could deal with Caitlin personally."

Min shivered in fright for poor Caitlin. "Don't tell me it's…"

Lily nodded. "It's Mr. Arthurs."

Min winced. "Ouch. Isn't he that guy who got Sara Jankins in trouble because she read a book about the Renaissance in history class while they were actually studying about it?"

"The Renawhat?" Lily asked innocently, and cocked her head to the right.

"Never mind." Min quickly said. To be blunt, Lily wasn't very book smart. Or street smart for that matter.

As they were both walking to Min's home, Min felt that they were being followed. So did Lily. They exchanged glances, but acted as if nothing was wrong. Whenever they stopped to tie their shoes or to do something, the thing or person stalking them also stopped. Lily estimated that it kept about ten meters away. See, Lily may not be that book smart or street smart, but she was demigod smart.

"Reveal yourself!" Lily finally yelled out after a few minutes.

"I just wanted to see if you'd improved." Gabriel Granger, son of Hades, popped out of the bushes. "But I did get better at stalking. Didn't I? Didn't I?"

"Idiot! That's not a thing to be proud of!" Min bellowed, and hit him on the head.

"What _are _you doing?" another familiar voice asked. The trio turned to see Caitlin.

She looked rather amused, and drew both of her dark eyebrows up. Her black hair was tamed into a ponytail, and she held heavy textbooks in her hand as if they weighed nothing.

"Oh. Nothing." Min smiled. "So you got excused early?"

"Yeah. Lucky me." Caitlin said, and joined the three in their walk to Min's house.

"Say, what are you gonna get for Nar's birthday next week?" Gabriel chirped up. "It is his sweet sixteen, after all."

**Hey. I've written another chapter. If you haven't noticed, I changed my penname to CaliforniaWriter.**

**Anyways, I put up a poll on my profile page asking who Min should be with. Vote now. You might have a say in who Min gets to be with. Okay, not really. But I want to see what the current favorite is.**


	15. Chapter 15

"I don't want to go to school

"I don't want to go to school." Cailtlin Styx said flatly and emotionlessly to Nico, holding on to her little doll. I hovered nervously at the side of the room, ready to defend Nico just in case Caitlin decided to slap him again.

"Caitlin, it's not what you want to do. See, going to school is a law. If you break a law, you go to jail. Besides, school will be fun. You'll make friends, and play games, and learn a lot of stuff. Don't you want to go?" Nico explained patiently, with a bit of irritation and nervousness tinged in his voice. "Besides, it's free. And like Bianca used to say, the best things in life are free."

"You're a liar." Caitlin said simply. She looked a little uncomfortable. At Annabeth's insistence, she had been forced into ordinary clothes, a light blue blouse that with a kitty on it, and plain white shorts. Her hair was yanked into two big pigtails.

We had been convincing Caitlin to go to school for about a week now. She kept refusing, and we didn't want to drag her there. God knows what she would do to us.

Caitlin was a weird little kid. Half of the time, she had an explosive temper that really would explode at the slightest thing. Mount Caitlin Styx, a volcano ready to erupt. Other than her bad temper, she would seem like an ordinary kid. The other half of time, she would be silent and…emotionless. Pure emotionless. The only person she listened to was Min, which was pretty amazing.

"Please, Caitlin! Go to school!" Nico begged, on his knees yet again. Did he have no dignity?

"No." Caitlin stated again and shot Nico a disgusted glare.

"Pleeeeeeeaaase!" Nico begged again in a whiny voice, and kissed her foot.

He really had no dignity, didn't he?

"For the last time, NO!" Caitlin barked, and stamped her foot angrily on the ground. Nico and I both flinched. She made a "hmmph!" noise and stomped out of the room.

"That went well." I said.

"No! It didn't go well!" Nico sobbed.

"It's called sarcasm."

"Oh. Okay."

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Caitlin hovered almost uncertainly at the edge of the group. Today's brats included Nar Beuragard, Harry Mars, Paul Nelson, Ian Javenson, Gabriel Granger, Lily Greene, and Sonia Stoll. Min was also there.

Out of all the little kids, only Min knew Caitlin. Min had Caitlin, much to my dismay, shared a room. (Nico had to sleep on the couch.) I knew that Min viewed Caitlin as strange, even outright weird. Still, my little baby was so kind, always trying to make her feel welcome and included. However, most of her attempts failed. Caitlin still wore black, Caitlin still carried around that creepy doll of hers, Caitlin was usually silent.

I wanted to find out who she was, and where she came from. I looked at newspapers to see if they had news of missing little girls. I looked up things on the Internet. But it all came out as a total blank. No use. There was no missing girl named Caitlin who carried around a fancy doll and liked black clothes.

To tell you the truth, Caitlin wasn't as much trouble as I thought she'd be. She was usually quiet and listless, with a look of almost stupid suffering on her face. But the two times I saw her angry were both tremendous.

The first time was with the whole Nico being late thing. He actually almost went to the hospital… (We had decided against that. Awkward questions. How could a little girl beat up an adult like Nico?)

The second time was with Min, my little Minnie! Apparently, Min had decided to share her juice and crackers with that retarded little doll, and rubbed some crackers over her face. Apparently, Caitlin got very angry. And apparently, Caitlin had "accidentally" tried to drown Min. (Luckily, Min could breathe underwater, being my daughter and all. Still, the experience was frightening for her, and she cried for half an hour afterwards.)

"This Caitlin, are you sure she's your half-sister?" I whispered to Nico. "Maybe she's some random kid who found out about demigods and the like."

"Nah. She's smells like the dead. Like me. Grover said so." Nico whispered back.

I always knew that demigods had a particular smell. Although all the smells were attractive to monsters, they each had their own distinct scent. Nico was supposed to smell like the dead, and me of the ocean. That left me wondering how the other demigods smelled like. Did Annabeth give off a distinct aroma of books and Clarisse of sweat? Silena of makeup and Beckendorf of some type of metal? Demeter kids probably smelled like flowers.

"Have you seen Thalia lately?" Nico asked, changing the conversation entirely.

"No. Why?"

"Because I've heard that the Hunters of Artemis disbanded, or something like that." Nico said. "Just a rumor!" he added hastily at my alarm. "But I've been hearing a lot of it these days, so I'm just making sure it's a rumor. That's all."

I felt trouble at this little remark. Yet, there was also disbelief. The Hunters of Artemis disband? Impossible! They were all young middle school girls, loyal as hell to Artemis, tough and boy-hating. And Thalia would never allow them to disband. She'd beat them up first. Or better yet, kill them.

"Impossible." I voiced my thoughts. "Just impossible."

"That's what Grover said."

"Exactly."

"But he was drunk at the time."

"Oh."

"Daddy, I can't find Aquastar!" Min bounced up to me, Scooter yapping at her heels. "She's missing! I think I left it at Uncle Bobby's house yesterday!"

"We can get her next time we visit Bobby, sweetheart." I said.

"NO! I need her now!"

Min's face had the same stubborn look that Annabeth had sometimes, her jaw set just the same way, her cloudy eyes about to break into a thunderstorm, and so forth. Scooter barked at me again, and then wagged his tail. I frowned at him. I usually didn't like hellhounds, and he was no exception. (The only exception was Mrs. O' Leary, and I hadn't seen her in years. I wondered how she was doing.)

"Fine, Min. I'll phone Uncle Bobby, and I'll see what I can do." I sighed, and ruffled her hair. Satisfied for the time being, she bounced away to Lily Greene and Sonia Stoll, who were busy playing some kind of a tea party.

"Kids." Nico snorted. "How can you stand them?"

I looked at the twenty-one year old Nico di Angelo. Still just a kid. Okay, I was a father at his age, but it was different.

Nico was a complex character. When I first met him one winter many years ago, he seemed like an ordinary ten-year-old kid. Cheerful, devoted to his sister, obsessed over his Mythomagic game, he was a normal half-blood struggling to survive against monsters. After Bianca died and he blamed me, he ran away and lived in the Underworld itself for months. During that time, he became a little emo, obsessed with revenge and bringing his sister back from the dead, and actually threw his Mythomagic cards in a fire! Gasp! (AN: That's what I thought after reading BotL.) After he found out that it really wasn't my fault and all, he turned serious and mature, acting more like an eighteen-year-old than an eleven-year-old, not to mention he was one of the most powerful demigods around. Now he was twenty-one, light-hearted, and totally irresponsible.

Now he was the guardian of his little half-sister, Caitlin Styx.

Nico fingered his Stygian iron sword, a habit I noticed a long time ago that he did whenever he was nervous or angry. Judging by the look on his face, I would say that he was nervous. His Stygian iron sword was the Underworld equivalent of Riptide.

"Thinking of Caitlin?" I asked.

"Yeah. Percy, I don't know how to raise a kid!" Nico whined, his fingers still stroking his sword. "I don't know what to do!"

"Nico, when you fall in love with a nice girl, settle down, marry, and have kids, you'll understand." I assured him. "Parenthood is kind of like…your first drink."

Nico raised one of his eyebrows. "My first drink?"

"Yeah. How did your first drink feel like?"

Nico shrugged. "I dunno. Great, I guess. Exciting. I had my first drink when I was fourteen. It was a long time ago."

"Fourteen?" I asked incredulously, turning my gaze from the laughing children to Nico di Angelo. "Fourteen! You! You!" I hesitated, and then decided to drop the subject. "Well…anyways, it felt good. Exciting. Like the only thing in the world. Right?"

"Right." Nico nodded.

"That's how having your first child feels like. Exciting, good, like there's nothing else in the entire world. But after a while, it gets a little…same."

"Same?"

"Yeah. Drinking isn't just as exciting after the first time. You know? It's great, but not the same enthusiasm. That's how having a kid feels like. And after many years, you'll look back fondly on those years." I finished, satisfied at my brilliant metaphor. And Annabeth said I wasn't "literary." Ha!

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"I hate prophecies." I told my brother-in-law.

Bobby nodded sympathetically. He had come to our house with Aquastar after I had dropped him a call. He wasn't conniving and mean as usual. In fact, he seemed sober and serious, a positive development. He probably knew that the war between Uranus and us had gotten more serious.

"And I hate the fact that soon some teenage kid at Camp Half-Blood will get some stupid prophecy and go on some quest." I continued on. "God, what if it was Min? How would that be like? What if she died? It would be horrible."

"Horrible." Bobby echoed. "I don't understand much about this Greek stuff, but I'm just a regular mortal."

"Mortals can do stuff. I know plenty. My mom, for one. And Rachel."

Min bounded into the room that moment, clutching Aquastar, Scooter nearby. She walked right up to me with a troubled look in her eye, as if she had seen something that she shouldn't have seen.

"Aren't you supposed to be napping, Min?" I asked her, concerned about what was troubling her.

Min took a deep breath and said, "I had a bad dream, Daddy."

Uh oh. I knew from firsthand experience that the dreams of half-bloods, especially nightmares, could show the present, past, or future. I wondered what trouble was brewing up.

"It was about a man. He was kind of like…weird. He was strong like Grandma and Grandpa, so I think he was a god, but he seemed kind of youngish. Like Uncle Nico's age. And Grandma was near him, except she all tied up. And Daddy? He looked kind of familiar because of his eyes. His eyes."

Min had the same dream as I did? I leaned forward eagerly, wanting to know the exact details. It seemed as though Min remembered more than I did. Bobby stared at us curiously, wondering what was going on.

"His eyes. His eyes looked like Grandma's. Like Mommy's. Like mine. They were gray."

The pieces suddenly click, falling in place. Eyes like Athena's, Annabeth's, and Min's.

There was another myth, a long time ago. I always disregarded it as one of those untrue, mortal ones. But what is there was more truth to it than I thought?

There once was a goddess named Metis, a daughter of a Titan. A minor goddess, one that really didn't matter. But one day she caught Zeus's eye and they had an affair. Metis got pregnant. Then Zeus heard a prophecy. If Metis had a son, the son would overthrow Olympus the same way Zeus overthrew Kronos. In panic, Zeus swallowed Metis. But being immortal, Metis couldn't die. She gave birth to a daughter. The daughter couldn't stay inside her father's head forever, so she burst free out of his skull one day. Her name was Athena, and she became an Olympian.

What if, what if Athena had a brother?

What if, what if he was the god in my dreams, and Min's?

What if, what if he had teamed up Uranus to overthrow Olympus?

What if that really happened?

I knew the answer to that last question. We were all doomed.

**Hey, everyone. Long time no see. Sorry for the lack of updating. Not a very good chapter, because I rushed on it.**

**Ooh, the young god is revealed! By the way, Metis and the prophecy and the swallowing is all true, an old Greek myth. I didn't make it up. By the way, I read Battle of the Labyrinth. Awesome.**


	16. Chapter 16

Life went on as usual, despite my great revelation

Life went on as usual, despite my great revelation. I didn't tell anyone. Was that a mistake? I didn't want to worry Annabeth, who was fat and bloated from her pregnancy (may she never hear me say that). As for the others, I was sure that ignorance was better. Annabeth may say that knowledge is power, but I also know for a fact that ignorance is bliss.

Life went on like any other day. It gave me a pain, seeing my fellow demigods struggle to defend themselves and get ready for battles. It was hopeless. Prophecies always came true. Always. I myself was either a victim or champion of one, whichever way you chose to look at it.

So in other words, I decided not to tell anyone.

Life went on as normal, or as normal as it could get. Annabeth seemed to noticed my silence, but didn't comment on them, assuming that it was just the war in general. Min was still a little kid, and romped around the house with Scooter and Lily Greene and Sonia Stoll tagging along. Even Caitlin, who did it because she had nothing better to do.

Yes, life went on.

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I met them soon after. "Them" was the trio of Alya Rivers, Dominic Li, and Daniel Li.

It was an ordinary day. I was outside with Min, holding her hand and walking home. Scooter was behind me, occasionally nipping at my heels which I did not like. Lily Greene trailed along after me, sniffing. And, incredibly, I held Nar's hand, too. At the moment though, I was thinking mostly about Scooter and nipping. After all, he had already ruined a pair of shoes with his constant nipping. Why did he like my shoes? Why not Annabeth's. What was so special and tasty about mine? I was thinking all of this, grumbling in my head.

The reason we were outside was because of what had apparently happened in Min's school. According to a babbling Min, this was what occurred:

For some reason, Nar had decided to pay a visit to Min's school, skipping at the tender young age of six! Mark my words, he'll be in juvie hall by the age of twelve. Well, Nar had just walked into Min's classroom, looked around, saw Lily, and then walked up to her and put a big, fat worm down her shirt.

That made a big commotion. A huge commotion. Lily shrieked and writhed and cried and made loud noises, basically. All the time, Nar was doubled over with laughter. The teacher finally managed to save Lily by taking the worm out of her shirt. Then she proceeded to interrogate Nar, who confessed immediately (and proudly) that he had been ditching school and come here to bother Lily and Min. At that point, the teacher hauled him off to the principal's office. The principal decided to call Annabeth and me. Annabeth had sent me over to pick Nar up, and Lily and Min as well, since the school day was almost over.

"You should behave. Your mother will be very, very, very disappointed in you," I scolded Nar, even though I knew it would have no effect.

It didn't.

"Tcch! Am I supposed to care what my mom thinks! No way! I'm Nar Beuaragard!" Nar yelled, and tried to wiggle out of my tight grasp, but I held firm. I was not letting Nar out of my sight until Silena hauled him off for preferably an eternal grounding.

"Say sorry to Lily," I commanded sternly.

"No way!"

"Say sorry!"

"No!"

Lily interrupted us. "It's all right, Mr. Jackson. He doesn't need to 'pologize. It's my fault anyway. I'm supposed to be a daughter of Demeter, and one with nature, but I'm not. Worms help plants grow, and I'm not good with worms. It's all my fault. If I was a better daughter of Demeter, then maybe I could've not cried and stuff."

That was probably the most outrageous thing I heard. I puffed myself to lecture Lily not to feel insecure about her Olympian heritage, and that Nar was a brat and it was his fault, and it was perfectly fine to be afraid of wiggly worms when a voice stopped me.

"Excuse me? Are you…?"

I turned around to see a girl flanked by two boys. She was obviously the one in charge, and looked older by an year or two. She had dreamy, ocean deep green eyes and black curly hair that fell to her shoulders. She looked a bit like Min, and couldn't be much older than her, if not younger. The two boys had shocking blue eyes that seemed very familiar and long brown hair. I noted that they were identical twins.

"Oh. Are you kids lost?" I asked.

The girl stared at me again, with her green eyes. All of a sudden, her face broke out into a huge smile, and she ran up to me, and then hugged me, almost knocking me off the ground. I let go of Min and Nar's hands. They both looked surprised.

"I've been looking for you!" the girl said jubilantly.

"Um, who are you?" I asked, getting a little freaked out. Wouldn't you?

The girl laughed, as if I told a funny joke. "My name is Alya Rivers. Those two boys are Dominic Li and Daniel Li. They're twins! We've been traveling together for a long time, trying to find you, or at least one of you!"

"I ask again, who are you? Where're you parents?"

The girl laughed yet again, and then said, "Silly. Don't you know who my parent is? I'm Poseidon's daughter. I'm your little sister."

WHAT? I had a little sister?

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"What? You have a little sister?" Annabeth hissed at me, staring over at Alya and Dominic and Daniel who were busy discussing something in the corner.

"I know!" I hissed back. "I didn't know either!"

"Well, it does make sense," Annabeth said, but mostly to herself. "I mean, once the oath was forsaken, the Big Three Gods were bound to get busy. I'm so stupid! Why didn't I see this sooner? With Caitlin, I should've realized that there would be more Big Three kids born! I wouldn't be surprised if you have tons more little half-brothers and sisters running around someplace."

"I don't _want_ my little brothers and sisters running around!" I cried out.

"Not only do we have a daughter of Hades, and a daughter of Poseidon, now we have to sons of Zeus!" Annabeth continued on.

"What? Two sons of Zeus? Where?"

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Percy. It's pretty obvious that those Li twins are sons of Zeus. Didn't you just look into their eyes? That's only something Thalia and Zeus himself has! Same thing with Caitlin and Nico and Bianca with those black eyes, and you Alya with those green ones. There's just something different about the Big Three's eyes. It's just the way it is, I guess."

I looked back at Dominic and Daniel and Alya. With a pang, I realized that they reminded me of none other than Luke and Thalia and Annabeth. Those three were traveling by themselves, probably protected by their Olympian parents every here and there. Daniel had a scratch on his left cheek that looked like it was healing, and all three were dirty, as if they hadn't taken a shower in a long time.

"We're going to have to take them in, aren't we?" I asked.

"Of course," Annabeth sighed. "This house is becoming really crowded you know."

**AN: I apologize sincerely for lack of updates and the like, and for the shortness of this chapter buy my sister keeps on yelling at me to get off of the computer.**

**Will write more later.**


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